


Written in the Scars on Our Hearts

by elizaye



Series: Just Give Me a Reason [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Angst, Bottom Castiel, Fluff and Angst, Infidelity, Jealousy, Kid Fic, Knotting, M/M, Masturbation in Shower, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Castiel, Past Mpreg, Possessive Dean Winchester, Rimming, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:20:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaye/pseuds/elizaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's... content. He's single, and he'll probably stay that way for the rest of his life. He screwed up his relationship with Cas, fucked up badly enough that no one in their right mind would take him back, and really, Dean's already stupidly lucky that he's allowed to see Ariel at all, let alone have her over at his place every other weekend. It's more than he deserves, but hell, he's not about to give it up. He's accepted the consequences for his actions, and he's content. At least, he thinks he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **You can keep up with my progress and/or thoughts about this fic by tracking the[pinkverse tag](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/pinkverse) on tumblr.**
> 
> ETA: I should have said this from the beginning, but this fic stemmed from a ficlet on tumblr that was less than 2k words long. I doubt I would have actually followed through on this without [Shiny](http://getmeshiny.tumblr.com)'s encouragement, so basically you should all go [thank her and tell her she's awesome](http://getmeshiny.tumblr.com/ask).

Dean is resetting the Candy Land board for the fifth time when the buzzer sounds, and he jumps up to answer it. “Yeah, we’ll be right down,” he says into the intercom.

“Aw, Daddy, I wanted to play again,” Ariel complains from her seat on the floor.

“I know you’ve got it at home. Why don’t you make your other Daddy play with you?” Dean asks as he picks up Ariel’s bag and goes to the door.

“He’s always tired,” Ariel says. She pouts up at Dean as he ushers her out the door, following after her and patting his pockets to make sure he’s got his keys.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Dean says. “Next time, okay?”

“Okay,” Ariel says, taking Dean’s hand as they wait for the elevator. Then she asks, “Daddy, when can you come to daycare?”

Dean chuckles. “I don’t need to go to daycare.”

“But I want to show you to Ben! He said that you don’t love me and Daddy, and that’s why you don’t live with us. But you do love me, right?”

The elevator dings, and they step inside. “Of course I do,” Dean says, letting Ariel jab the button for the ground floor enthusiastically.

“So you’ll come?”

Dean smiles down at her. “Yeah, I can talk to Cas. Is that what you want?”

Ariel nods, smiling beatifically. They get off at the ground floor and go through the lobby toward the exit, because Cas usually waits out in the car—minimizing chances for contact with Dean, as always.

“Ariel!” a voice calls out from the side, and Dean turns, because that isn’t Cas’s voice.

“Baltasah!” Ariel squeaks, pulling away from Dean and running across the lobby. She runs right into Balthazar’s outstretched arms, and he lifts her into the air, spinning her around once before setting her back on the ground.

“Where’s Cas?” Dean asks as Balthazar and Ariel come back toward him.

“The job interviews have gone over,” Balthazar explains. “He sent a text, said that they haven’t even gotten to him yet, and he’s been there for over an hour already.”

Dean frowns. “What is he even applying for?”

“I’m not entirely certain. Some secretarial position for high management at some company, I’ve gathered,” Balthazar answers blithely.

“Oh. Yeah, those can take some time because employers have to take compatibility into account,” Dean says. He’s conducted a few interviews of his own, and it’s difficult to gauge how different people will work together, but it’s definitely an important consideration.

They fall silent, and then Ariel asks, “Can we play Candy Land when we get home?” and Dean probably gets a little too much satisfaction from the way Balthazar’s shoulders slump a little at the request.

“Yes, I suppose we can,” he replies.

“I’ll see you later, then,” Dean says.

Balthazar nods, and Ariel says, “Bye, Daddy!”

Dean watches them exit the lobby before going to the elevator and heading back up to his apartment. He can’t help but feel cheated, because usually he at least gets to _look_ at Cas for a minute, and fuck it all, he misses Cas enough that that minute or two is significant to him. Instead, he was stuck with Balthazar’s minty-cold scent, not exactly offensive on its own but unpleasant to Dean’s nose because he smells it lingering on Ariel sometimes, a reminder that Cas and Ariel have another alpha in their life.

It makes no sense, and he has no right, but it’s just how he feels. He’s had plenty of time to get over Cas, but really, a mate isn’t something you just _get over_.

When Dean gets back up to his apartment, his cell phone is ringing, and he glances at the caller ID before picking up. “Charlie,” he greets. “What do you want?”

“Is Ariel gone yet?”

“Yeah, just left.”

“Okay, great,” Charlie says, and Dean can already imagine her grin. “Get online, because you are _so_ due for an ass whoopin’.”

“Yeah, okay. Gimme a minute.”

* * *

Dean wakes with a start, feeling utterly uncomfortable—more so than usual. He sighs and gets out of bed, because whenever he feels this shitty, it’s a sure sign that he won’t be able to go back to sleep. Trudging into the bathroom, he splashes water on his face and grabs a towel to dry off.

Then he stares at his face in the mirror, noting the bags under his eyes, and tries to remember the last time he got in a whole night’s sleep—or more than four hours, even.

It’s always the hardest this time of the month, because sure, alphas don’t have to go through heats, not the way omegas do, but a mated alpha is biologically inclined to rut whenever his or her omega is going through heat. It doesn’t even matter that Dean and Cas are separated now because a mating bond lasts lifelong, so Dean feels worse than normal for a few days each month. It doesn’t help that he knows what it means, knows that somewhere out there, Cas is going through heat.

“Dean?”

Dean goes back into the bedroom to find the lights on and his guest sitting up in bed. “Charlie, hey. Sorry I woke you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she says, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine.”

Charlie shakes her head. “This isn’t helping you, is it? Having me here?”

“I told you it wouldn’t make a difference,” Dean says.

“That bad, huh,” Charlie says, getting to her feet and coming toward Dean. “Maybe you really do need to find an omega, relieve some tension.”

“No,” Dean says. “That’ll only make it worse. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Lisa, then?”

“Definitely not. Been down that road before, and we are definitely better off when we’re not fucking,” Dean replies. “Look, Charlie, don’t worry about me. I’ve gotten through this part of the month on my own plenty of times.”

“How can I not be worried about you? You’re such a hot mess that Adler hired a personal assistant to keep an eye on you.”

“I thought the assistant was because of my promotion,” Dean says.

Charlie deflates a little. “Okay, maybe that too, but—”

“So I’m doing fine!”

“Dean, you are _not_ fine!” Charlie insists. “You need healthy, natural sleep.”

“ _You_ need healthy, natural sleep,” Dean counters. Charlie shoots him an unimpressed look, and okay, Dean has to admit that wasn’t his best comeback. She raises her eyebrows expectantly, and Dean snaps, “What?”

“ _Fight Club_ reference! How could you not get that? See, Dean, you’re _not_ fine.”

“It’s the middle of the night. Give me a break.”

Charlie sighs heavily and changes tack. “When’s the last time you called Sam, huh? Does he even know about the trouble you’ve been having?”

“Of course he knows, Charlie. It’s been years. And I talked to him yesterday, okay?”

Charlie stares at him. “He doesn’t know a thing, does he?”

“No, and it’s gonna stay that way,” Dean says firmly.

“Fine. But you are going to get back in bed, and I am going to stare at you until you go to sleep.” Dean starts to protest, but Charlie just talks faster, “I swear to god, Dean, I will hack into your account, get Sam’s phone number, and tell him you’ve been lying to him for—how many years, was it?”

“Charlie, quit it. I know you wouldn’t hack into my account. You get caught one more time, and Adler’s gonna kick you out.”

“Or I’ll just go straight to him and tell him you have cancer or something, and you’ve gotta take a leave of absence to go get chemotherapy—”

“Can we not invent a whole life story for me, here?”

“Sure. Go to bed, and I’ll shut right up.”

“You’re really something else, aren’t you?”

Charlie just puts her hands on her hips and glares at him until he relents and goes to lie down—he knows how to pick his fights, and this is not something he wants to fight her on.

“You’re so friggin’ bossy. This is why you don’t have a girlfriend, y’know,” Dean says.

“We’ve been over this, honey. I could have a girlfriend if I wanted one, but I’m too free-spirited.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Dean says, shifting to get comfortable. After a pause, he looks over at Charlie and says, “Aren’t you going to join me?”

“Nope! You said it wasn’t helping, and besides, I need to stay awake and make sure you don’t try to sneak off.”

“How is you losing sleep supposed to make me sleep easier?”

“Figure it out, smart guy,” Charlie says, turning the lights out and sitting down at Dean’s desk. “Now shut up and go the fuck to sleep.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, thanks, Fury.”

He can’t see Charlie’s face in the dark, but he knows that she’s smiling.

* * *

“So, how ‘bout this new assistant? She hot?”

Charlie rolls her eyes. “It’s a he, and dude, after last night, do you really think I’d believe that it’d make a difference whether your assistant was pretty or not?”

“Sheesh, someone’s touchy today,” Dean says.

“Yeah, because someone had to stay up to make sure _someone_ went to sleep.”

“Okay, let’s not do this.”

Rolling her eyes, Charlie says, “Anyway, he’s very qualified—I interviewed him myself, and to be honest, he is _way_ too good for you.”

“And the feelings of inadequacy just keep piling on,” Dean says sarcastically. “Now get the hell outta my office. I’ve got work to do.”

“Yeah, I should get back down to IT, anyway.”

Charlie says something else, but Dean doesn’t catch it because as she’s speaking, the door swings open, and Adler comes in, along with a familiar scent. And oh, fuck, that’s Cas. What is Cas doing here, at work? Dean’s mind instantly goes to Ariel—has something happened? But Cas is dressed up, suit and tie and pressed slacks, and Dean’s flashing back to their prom night, back before everything went to shit.

“Dean-o!” Adler says, as annoyingly cheery as always, and Dean gets to his feet with a polite smile, shooting a pointed look at Charlie.

She straightens from where she’d been leaning on Dean’s desk and says, “Mr. Adler, you’re early.”

“I’m never early,” Adler says. “Everyone else is just late. Anyway, I’m here to introduce you to your new personal assistant, Dean. This here’s Castiel.”

Dean smiles, and Jesus Christ on a fucking cracker, this is _not_ happening. “Hi,” he says, moving around his desk. Cas steps past Adler, and they shake hands. “Dean Winchester,” he adds.

Cas’s poker face is friggin’ amazing these days, and Dean hates that he has no idea what’s on his mind. “I look forward to working with you, sir.”

Cas pulls his hand back, and it takes all of Dean’s considerable self-restraint not to tighten his grip, pull Cas over to him, and take a nice, long whiff. Cas always maintains a safe distance from Dean, and this is the most physical contact that they’ve had in so long. _Too_ long.

Then Adler’s steering Cas back out of the room, saying something about giving him the grand tour as he leaves, and Dean just nods.

What the fuck.

No really, what the _fuck_ just happened?

“Dean, what’s wrong?” Charlie asks. “I was so sure that you guys would work perfectly.” Dean can’t form an answer just yet, so Charlie keeps going, “I mean, Adler knew we were friends, so that’s why he had me do the interviews. Dude, I went through like sixty candidates, and I could’ve sworn that he’d be the best match for you.”

Dean laughs then, a little hysterically, and Charlie looks at him, concerned. “Oh, yeah. You uh, you really know how to pick ‘em,” Dean says.

“What? What’s wrong with him? Something about him rub you the wrong way?”

Dean groans. “Did I never tell you that Cas was a nickname?”

It takes a second, but as soon as Charlie gets it, her eyes go wide as saucers. “You—you mean—”

“Yeah. That was Cas.”

“Oh, my god. Oh my god, he wouldn’t have found out he was gonna be working with you ‘til he got here this morning because we did one-way blind interviews,” Charlie says, eyes still comically wide. “Oh my god,” she repeats again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“I know. It’s fine,” Dean says.

But fuck, if Cas is already getting the rundown from Adler, then the paperwork’s already been signed, and Dean knows how much Cas needs this job. The stubborn little shit refuses to accept charity, hardly ever even lets Balthazar buy him things even though the dude’s filthy rich and has nowhere better to spend his money anyway. Firing him straight off is not an option, so what the hell is Dean supposed to do?

* * *

About twenty minutes later, long after Charlie went back down to IT, there’s a knock on Dean’s door. He clears his throat. “Uh, come in,” he says.

Cas’s scent hits him almost as soon as the door opens, and Dean fights down a groan. Cas avoids Dean as a rule, and Dean’s become accustomed to his brief visits to pick up or drop off Ariel, but this is Dean’s place of work, and he feels utterly unprepared for dealing with Cas here.

An uneasy silence stretches out between them, and Dean pretends to be reading something on his monitor, but none of the words are really processing in his head, every brain cell focused on taking in as much about Cas as possible without actually looking in his direction.

“I’m sorry,” Cas finally says, and Dean chances a glance at him.

He looks—well, he looks perfect. He’s dressed impeccably, black suit over a white shirt, with a blue tie around his neck. Dean’s eyes linger on the knot, expertly tied, and he wonders if Balthazar did that for him, because the Cas he knew definitely did not know his way around a Windsor knot. The thought hurts, and Dean does his best to shut it down.

“I didn’t—”

“Come in, and shut the door,” Dean says. Cas hesitates a moment before obeying, and when the door is closed, Dean says, “It’s fine, Cas. Charlie explained—you didn’t know.”

Cas nods. “I wouldn’t have undergone the selection process if I’d known—”

“No, I know,” Dean interrupts. He knows too well that Cas avoids him, and he doesn’t need to hear it.

After another pause, Cas says, “I could hand in a resignation now, but… but the screening process to get here was difficult, especially given my disadvantage.” He stops here and meets Dean’s gaze head-on for the first time since he set foot in the office, and Dean’s heart stutters in his chest. “If it is not too big an inconvenience for you, I would like to stay,” Cas says.

Dean barely stops himself from gaping. “You want to stay,” he says slowly, to make sure he didn’t hear that wrong.

“Yes.”

“Cas, you’ve done nothing but avoid me for the past six years.”

“I’m aware. I am also a single father who needs a better-paying job to support his child.”

Dean sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “If I could transfer you to another department, would you take it?”

Cas nods. “I would be very grateful,” he says with a small, surprised smile, like he’d forgotten Dean could be nice, and that… stings.

“I’ll take it up with Adler, then."

“Thank you, Dean. Is there—would you like me to do anything for you in the meantime?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll talk to Adler in the afternoon and call you tonight—just take today off, spend some more time with Ariel.”

Cas smiles again, and that sets off a ton of bittersweet feelings, because Dean’s seen Cas with Ariel, open and happy, and it always aches a little that he’s not with them.

“Thank you—again. I appreciate your offer,” Cas says.

“Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Dean says.

Then Cas exits the room, closing the door quietly behind himself, and Dean buries his face in his hands. What did he ever do to deserve this?

* * *

“So you want a different person. Is that it?” Adler asks.

“Not exactly. I just thought Castiel would be better-suited for a higher position than personal assistant.”

“Personal assistant to the director of sales and marketing,” Adler corrects cheerfully. “It’s a perfect position for him.”

Dean frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Adler shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter anymore. You sure you don’t want him? Ms. Bradbury seemed so certain that the two of you were compatible—that he would suit your needs.”

“Wait—what’ll happen if I choose not to keep him on?”

Adler shrugs. “He goes back to job-hunting, I suppose. There’s a clause in his contract that allows you to fire him at any time if he doesn’t perform to your standards.”

“You can’t transfer him or something?”

“No.”

“But—Charlie showed me his qualifications, and he’s capable of handling a higher position than—”

“Oh, Dean, Dean, my boy, let me clear something up for you.” Adler pauses to smile at Dean before going on, “You can’t give too much power to an omega. It is in their nature to submit, and you just can’t have weak links like that in a business.”

“That’s a myth—they’re only required to submit to their mates,” Dean says. This is something he’s acutely—and uncomfortably—aware of, and he concentrates hard on Adler so the memories won’t catch up with him.

“Even so, it’s a weakness that can be exploited.”

Dean stares at Adler. “Y’know, one of the core values at Sandover is leaving prejudice outside of the workplace. The stuff you’re saying right now? Definitely sounds like prejudice to me.”

“Well, _yeah_. Of course.” Adler sighs. “Look around you, Dean. How many omegas are in this company? I’ll bet you can’t even name one.” And now that Adler’s pointed it out, Dean… honestly cannot think of a single one. “Do you want to know why?” his boss continues. “Because they’re the child bearers. They’re the ones who stay at home to look after our young. I’ll tell you right now—in our employ, we have four omegas. Five, including Castiel, and that’s already more than most—if not all—businesses.”

Dean gives Adler a disbelieving look—can’t help it. He knew life was hard for omegas, that people were less likely to hire them, but he’d thought that at least Sandover wasn’t so prejudiced. Apparently, he just hasn’t been paying enough attention.

“Oh, Dean, you’re still so young and naïve. This is how the world works,” Adler says. “Now, back to business. Castiel: is he going or staying?”

“Staying,” Dean says.

Adler raises his eyebrows. “You sure ‘bout that, Dean-o? Can’t have you going back and forth on this.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. Well, I’m going to take off a little early—I’ve got a parent-teacher conference to get to. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Good talk,” Dean says before leaving Adler’s office, and well, shit.

In the hallway, he takes a minute to think, but there really isn’t anything else he can do. He knows it’d be as easy as lifting a finger for Adler to fire Cas and replace him with someone else if Dean gives him too much grief about it.

“Well hello, Dean. What brings you to the top floor today?”

Ah, Crowley. Dean forces a smile and says, “None of your business.”

“Hmm. Well you know what _is_ my business? The quarterly report that was supposed to be on my desk by eleven this morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” Dean says, heading for the stairs.

He’s learned in his time here that it’s best not to argue when it comes to Crowley because the guy is one of the most influential members on the board of directors, but the fact of the matter is that Dean’s analysts haven’t gotten all the data back to him yet, so he’s got nothing to put in the quarterly report.

He goes down three flights of stairs and reaches his office just as the phone on his desk starts ringing. He picks it up and says, “Yeah, it’s Winchester here.”

“Oh, good. I was worried I might get the machine again. Or worse, Charlie.”

Dean chuckles. “Lisa, hey. How’s it going?”

“Good. Listen, Dean, I—”

“Wait, why are you calling this phone?”

“You weren’t picking up your cell.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “Sorry ‘bout that. I went upstairs to talk to my boss.”

“Mm. Well, I was wondering when we could go out for dinner. It’s about time we got together and caught up on things, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’m a bit swamped this week, so… how ‘bout next Monday?”

“Works for me.”

“Must be nice, to set your own schedule,” Dean says.

“Oh yeah, it’s great. Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work. See you next week, Dean.”

“Yep, see you.”

Dean hangs up the phone and walks around the desk to his chair, moving his mouse a little to wake up his computer.

Not five minutes later, the door opens, and Benny walks in.

“What’s this Charlie’s telling me about your ex coming to work here?”

Dean groans. “Aw, great. What did she say?”

“That your ‘Cas’ is actually the human stick of boner incense that Zachariah marched through the office this morning,” Benny replies.

“Can you not talk about him like that?”

“It’s true. You shoulda seen the looks on the guys’ faces. Hell, _I_ wanted to jump him, and I’m a happily married man.”

“Fantastic. That makes me feel so much better about all this,” Dean grumbles.

Benny actually laughs at that. “Always happy to help a brother out,” he says when he’s done, and Dean chucks a pen at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not yet finished writing this, but there is a 100% chance that I have already started writing a prequel and an 80% chance that I will finish said prequel. There is also a 100% chance that I started planning an intermediate fic that'll be set between this fic and the prequel, and maybe a 50% chance I'll actually write said intermediate fic.


	2. Chapter 2

Cas is a friggin’ excellent assistant, Dean decides on the third day after Cas starts work. He’s already caught two mistakes in Dean’s work—minor ones, but still—and he managed to point out said mistakes without making Dean feel stupid or incompetent. Also, Dean wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone who asked, but he’s been backlogged on quite a few assignments, but with Cas here, managing his time and helping out here and there, Dean finally feels like he’s getting on top of things.

Based purely on intelligence and capability, Cas should have a way better job—if he were an alpha or even a beta, he would probably be on the same level as Dean, director of some division of the company. It’s fucked up that he’s sitting in the smaller office adjoined to Dean’s, doing Dean’s bidding.

It’s actually kind of a shit situation, because they closed up Dean’s original office door, rearranged everything in his office, and opened up a door that leads straight into Cas’s office, the intent being that anyone who wanted to see Dean would have to go through Cas. But it also means that Dean can’t come or go without passing by Cas, who always smells ridiculously good, good enough that Dean has to forcibly keep himself from lingering just to savor that scent for a little while longer.

It’s late now, almost ten o’clock, but Dean’s only just gotten out of a last-minute emergency meeting, and he’s got plenty of work to do for the shareholder’s meeting Adler wants to hold in the morning.

“You sure you don’t want me to stick around? That couch in your office ain’t so bad,” Benny says.

“No, go home, man. Besides, if I keep you out when you don’t need to be, Andrea’s going to kick my ass,” Dean replies.

Benny chuckles. “I s’pose she would. Good night, then. You have fun, brother.”

“Just get the hell outta here,” Dean says, stopping at the door to Cas’s office and watching Benny continue down the hall. Sighing, he enters Cas’s office and freezes, startled. “Cas. What are you doing here?”

Cas looks up from the book he’s got open on his desk and says, “It’s my office. Where else would I be?”

“No, I mean—it’s past ten o’clock. Shouldn’t you be home?”

“It is stated in my contract that barring emergencies, I am to work the same hours that you do,” Cas says nonchalantly. “I already called Balthazar and explained that I’d be late.”

“Uh. Cas, I’m pulling an all-nighter to get these reports ready for tomorrow morning. You should just go home,” Dean says, walking past Cas’s desk and opening the door to his own office. He turns the light on and drops the stack of folders on his desk.

“It will go faster if we work on it together,” Cas says from the doorway.

Dean collapses into his chair. “Cas…”

“You haven’t eaten since lunch, have you?” Cas interrupts. “I’ll pick up something for us to eat, and then you can go over what needs to be done.”

“Cas, you don’t have to—” Dean starts, but Cas is already walking away from the doorway and moving around in his office.

“I’ll be back in twenty,” he says, and then Dean hears the outer door slam shut.

Yeah, Cas is fucking fantastic. Now if only he weren’t—well, _Cas_. If only Dean hadn’t screwed up his chances completely.

* * *

“Hey, Cas!” Dean hears in Charlie’s cheerful voice, muffled by the door, and he glances up at the clock to see that it’s already five thirty—damn it.

He opens up the next folder anyway, and Benny says from the couch, “You might as well knuckle under now, save yourself some dignity.”

“Who needs dignity? Crowley wants this damn thing on his desk tomorrow morning,” Dean says.

Charlie opens the door and comes inside, walking right up to Dean’s desk and putting her hands on her hips. “Dean, you guys were supposed to meet me downstairs ten minutes ago.”

“Cas, come in here,” Benny says, and Cas appears in the doorway. “Your job is to screen Dean’s visitors. Why’d you let this riffraff in?”

“Ha, ha, you’re hilarious,” Charlie says, rolling her eyes. “Cas, you can go back to your desk.”

“Oh, and you don’t have to take orders from these two,” Dean adds. He glances up just in time to catch a smile on Cas’s face, more sincere than Dean’s seen from him in years—at least, of the smiles that haven’t been directed at Ariel—and his heart rate kicks up almost alarmingly.

“I know,” Cas says before disappearing, and Dean looks back down at the datasheet in his hands, but all he can see is that goddamned smile.

“Come _on_ ,” Charlie says, planting her hands on Dean’s desk and leaning into his space. He just leans farther back, taking the sheet of paper with him. “You can totally finish this later, right?”

“It’s gotta be done by tomorrow morning,” Dean says.

“Can’t Benny help?”

“No,” Dean says.

“But he’s one of your analysts, isn’t he?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah, but we’re not supposed to have any bias in the overall summary,” Dean replies.

Charlie sighs. “I wanted to go bowling. It’s no fun with only three people. You can’t even do teams.”

“Actually, it’s going to be two, if Dean doesn’t go,” Benny says.

“What? Why isn’t Garth coming?”

“Mr. Fuzzles is sick.”

“Isn’t that his sock puppet?” Charlie asks.

“No, ma’am. That’s Mr. Fizzles. Mr. Fuzzles is his cat,” Benny answers.

“The work would go by a whole lot faster if you two would shut up,” Dean says.

“You could just bring your work with you to the bowling alley,” Benny suggests.

“Oh, I don’t know, man. I’m not gonna get any work done in a bowling alley.”

“But we’re only gonna have three people,” Charlie complains.

“We could reschedule,” Dean says, because that’d be perfect. It’s been a long time since they got together outside of grabbing a few drinks at the bar, and sure, Dean wants to go bowling, but he really does need to get this report done.

“No,” Charlie says. “We’ve already pushed this back like three times. We’re going tonight.”

“You could all go ahead,” Cas says from the doorway, and Dean’s head snaps up without his permission, eyes finding Cas the way they always want to whenever they’re in the same room. Cas continues, “I have looked over these datasheets, and I can put one together without bias, using Dean’s past work as a reference.”

“Dude, no,” Charlie protests before Dean can even say anything. Then she says, “Wait—Cas, why don’t _you_ come with us? If we ever get Dean out of this freakin’ office, we can play teams.”

“Oh, I probably shouldn’t,” Cas says.

Dean has no excuse for the next words out of his mouth, doesn’t know what prompts them—probably temporary fucking insanity—but he says, “No, y’know what, you should come, Cas. You need to have more fun.”

Cas looks surprised, as though he’d expected Dean to be opposed to the idea, which—well, he probably should be. “Your report?” Cas says.

Dean shrugs. “I’ll get it done. It’s not like I’ve never worked outside the office before.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Charlie says, punching the air as Dean picks up a few of the papers scattered around his desk and puts them in a folder. As he grabs the stack of folders and goes to put them in his briefcase, he hears Charlie continue, “C’mon, Cas, what do you say? You’ve been here a week, right?”

“A week and four days,” Cas corrects.

“Well, let’s celebrate you making it through your first week, or something.”

“I shouldn’t stay out too late,” Cas says.

“Cas, it’s only like five thirty. We won’t be there for more than three hours, so the latest you’ll get home is eight thirty,” Dean points out.

“I suppose I could spare a few hours,” Cas says, giving in. “I’ll pack up now.”

He goes back out of sight again, and Dean wonders what the hell he was thinking. Going by the expression on his face, Benny’s thinking along the same lines. But hey, what’s done is done, and he can’t exactly un-invite Cas at this point.

Dean finishes putting his things away and shuts his computer down before getting to his feet. When he looks over, Charlie and Benny are exchanging hostile looks, and Dean asks, “What’s up with you two?”

“Nothin’,” Benny says, standing and exiting the office.

When Dean looks at Charlie, she rolls her eyes and says, “I don’t know. He gave me the stink eye first.”

“Yeah, ‘course he did,” Dean says as he passes by Charlie and enters Cas’s office. “You ready to go, Cas?”

Cas nods, shrugging on his trench coat and stooping to pick up his briefcase.

“All right, let’s roll,” Benny says, leading the way out.

* * *

Forty minutes later, they’re at the bowling alley, coming up on the end of the first game.

“Last frame,” Benny says, getting to his feet.

“How ‘bout, lowest scorer this frame gets snacks, because I’m hungry,” Charlie says.

“Sure. Bring it on,” Dean says, turning to a fresh page in his notebook because he doesn’t have his laptop with him at the moment.

“And if there’s a tie?” Cas asks as Benny picks up his first ball.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” Dean suggests, glancing up for the action.

Benny’s first ball hits five pins, and Charlie says, “Dude, we’re gonna kick your asses.”

It’s true. Dean and Benny are too far behind to catch up, especially if Cas and Charlie keep getting strikes like they have been so far tonight.

“First game’s just warm-up,” Benny says, going up for his second shot. He bowls a spare and comes back grinning like a shark as he waits for the pins to reset.

Dean looks back down at his notes, and yeah, this is definitely not gonna be his best work, not even close, but he doesn’t really care because Crowley’s been an annoying little shit, lately—at least, more so than usual. But at least it’s almost finished. All Dean has left to write is a brief summary of the collected data. And then he’ll have to type it all up, but that should go pretty quickly.

Benny sits down next to him, and he looks up at the scoreboard. “Eight, huh? Not bad,” Dean comments.

Benny shrugs one shoulder. “How goes the report?”

“Almost done,” Dean replies.

It’s kinda miraculous, really, how quickly he got this far, considering all the noise and the distraction of having Cas within sight at all times. He registers belatedly that Cas and Benny are talking, and god, is that really jealousy he’s feeling over Cas just _talking_ to another alpha? Shaking himself, he looks back down at his notebook, only to be interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.

“You’re up!” Charlie announces, so Dean puts down his pen and notebook and gets to his feet.

Charlie apparently bowled three strikes—no surprise there; she’s always two or three strikes off a perfect game. Dean grabs a ball and waits a moment for the pins to reset. He manages to put away two strikes and another eight pins, and Benny cheers while Charlie rolls her eyes and says that Dean got lucky.

Dean resumes his seat, and a few minutes and three sentences later—writing this shit is like pulling teeth, seriously—they’re sending Cas off for snacks, Cas having bowled a 7-10 split with his first ball and subsequently failed to convert.

As soon as Cas is out of earshot, Benny says, “What were you thinking, inviting him along?”

Dean looks up, but Benny’s focus is on Charlie. “What—” he starts.

“Dude, what is your problem with Cas?” Charlie breaks in.

“I don’t have a problem with him, but it’s enough that he’s unavoidable at Dean’s place of work, and now you’re pulling him into Dean’s personal life?”

“Uh, guys—”

“What exactly is wrong with that, hmm?” Charlie demands. “They need to be able to interact outside of the office, don’t they? And Dean’s said before that he and Cas hardly ever saw each other before Cas started working at Sandover last week, so—”

“Why would they need to interact outside of work? And don’t say business trips, because Dean hasn’t left headquarters since he started work here.”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe so that they can recover?”

“Can you two stop talking about me as though I’m not here?” Dean asks.

“You don’t _recover_ in a situation like theirs,” Benny says, ignoring Dean. “You move on and do your best not to look back. Do you really think this is going to help them?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Shut up!” Dean barks, voice raised to get them to actually listen.

His vision ticks over to red for just a moment, something that hasn’t happened in a long time because Dean consistently keeps his alpha side under strict control. Several heads turn their way, responding both to the noise and the aggressive pheromones that Dean—and Benny and Charlie, for that matter—just released into the room, but at least Benny and Charlie have finally stopped.

Dean takes a few breaths, letting his heart rate drop back to normal, and waits until their audience has lost interest before saying, “I appreciate your concern, both of you, but it’s none of your business how much time Cas and I spend together, at work or not. Cas wouldn’t have agreed to come if he couldn’t handle it, and I would’ve said something if I wasn’t okay with it. Okay?”

“We’re just worried about—” Charlie starts.

“I know. I get that,” Dean says. “And I’ll telling you now to cut it out, or you’re gonna drive me nuts.”

“If that’s what you want,” Benny says.

“Charlie?”

“Got it, loud and clear.”

It’s silent for a moment, the tension between them dissipating, and then Charlie moves to sit on Dean’s right—Benny’s to his left.

“You almost finished?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah. I’ll see if I can get another two sentences out, and then I’m callin’ it quits.”

As he finishes speaking, a large platter of nachos is set down on the low table in front of the couch, and Charlie whoops excitedly.

“Thanks, man,” Benny says, taking a soda from the cardboard cup holder that Cas is carrying.

Cas sits down across from them, and Charlie moves back to the other couch for optimum nacho-reaching purposes. Cas reaches over to place Dean’s drink in front of him, and Dean flashes him a small smile.

“Thanks, Cas,” he says.

Cas only nods, and Dean’s uncomfortably aware that Benny and Charlie must be watching their interaction, evaluating it, picking it apart. Nosy friends are the worst, damn it.

“Eat, Dean,” Charlie prompts, pulling Dean out of his thoughts, and he nods, setting his notebook aside.

* * *

Dean’s phone beeps at four o’clock on Monday afternoon, and he picks it up to hear Cas say, “Benny’s here to see you,” just as the door opens and Benny enters.

“Go ahead and hang that up,” Benny says, pushing the door closed behind him. Benny waits until Dean’s put the phone down before saying, “Did you see the memo?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know about the benefit on Wednesday.”

“Yeah. And?”

Benny sighs. “And did you not notice the clause about escorting personal assistants?”

“I noticed,” Dean says. Maybe half an hour ago he was freaking out, but he’s had time to calm down.

“Pretty much no one else working on our floor has an assistant, Dean,” Benny says, stopping just short of rolling his eyes. “So who in upper management did you manage to piss off this time, and how do you think they found out about you and Cas?”

“I don’t think anyone could have found out,” Dean says. “Not from my side, anyway.”

“And I’m guessing it’s Crowley you’ve ticked off, because somehow it’s always him.”

“Yeah. Remember the night we went bowling last week?”

“Ah, so you actually got busted for that,” Benny says. “And you figure Crowley’s what, dangling temptation in front of you in the hopes that you’ll slip up and get a slap on the wrist?”

“Probably,” Dean says. “Cas and I already talked about this. He’s okay with it.”

“Jesus,” Benny mutters, shaking his head.

“Quit making a big deal outta nothing, okay?” Dean says. “We’re gonna grab dinner tonight, kind of a test run. We’ll be fine.”

“Well, that’s it. You’re crazy, the both of you. Do you really intend to keep doing this, dancing around each other like there’s nothing wrong, like you don’t have a past together?”

“Well… yeah. We’re managing it just fine, aren’t we?” Benny scrubs his face with his left hand, clearly irritated, and Dean says, “Okay, fine. Tell me. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Let’s see. Hormones, pheromones, heat cycles—”

“Cas takes suppressants,” Dean interjects, but Benny just goes on—

“—and doesn’t Cas have a boyfriend, anyway?”

“Yes,” Dean says.

“What does he think of all this, then?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as though I actually talk to him.” Benny opens his mouth to speak, so Dean says quickly, “Stop, okay? Just—stop. I get that you’re worried I’m gonna slip up, but I’m not. Cas and I are maintaining a strictly professional relationship—”

“Until the next time Charlie invites him to an outing,” Benny points out.

“Benny, come on, just leave it alone. Besides, what do you want me to do, fire him? You know how hard it is for omegas to find decent-paying jobs.”

“I just want you to be careful, don’t wanna see you get yourself into trouble.”

“I know. Quit worrying—I got it all under control,” Dean insists.

Benny sighs. “For now. When things inevitably go to shit, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Oh, well aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?” Dean says. Benny manages a small smile in response, and then Dean asks, “Anyway, we still on for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes,” Benny says, not protesting the change in topic. “Andrea spent the whole weekend planning out the courses, but she did her best not to let me know what to expect. Apparently you’re in for a treat, though. I’m guessing there’s going to be at least two types of pie.”

“Fine by me,” Dean says, grinning.

* * *

Driving anywhere with Cas—especially now that he’s _alone_ with Cas—is fucking surreal.

This marks the end of the first day of the third week since Cas started working at Sandover, and it’s the first time they’ve been alone in such close proximity. It feels so familiar, so goddamn right, that Dean can almost convince himself that he’s eighteen again, newly mated and still so friggin’ naïve.

Cas hasn’t said a word since they got in the car, but then, neither has Dean, so at least the awkwardness goes both ways. Once upon a time, they sat in silence like this all the time, but it was comfortable, familiar, safe. Wanted. This feels like a necessary evil, something they need to prove to themselves, and Dean _hates_ it.

“How’s Sam?” Cas asks, out of the blue, and Dean figures he doesn’t like the silence any more than Dean does.

“He’s great,” Dean answers. “Still nerding it up at Stanford, of all places.”

The bitch had actually called maybe three or four days ago to gloat about Stanford winning the axe back this year, and Dean had responded as any mature big brother would—he’d called Sam a bitch and hung up the phone.

“How are your brothers?” Dean asks in return.

“Well enough,” Cas answers. “Gabriel dropped out of graduate school to open a candy shop.”

“Oh—wait, what? Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Though he claims that the venture has been lucrative thus far.”

“How ‘bout Raphael? He still off saving the world somewhere?”

Cas smiles faintly. “I haven’t heard from him in over a year, but when we last spoke, he was working at a nonprofit based in Armenia, with severely limited resources. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still there, but I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me either if he’s already moved forward to his next project.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Dean comments—in all the years that he’s known Cas’s family, Raphael has always been far away, toiling for the greater good of some society or other, and Dean hasn’t actually met the guy. When he was still courting Cas, Raphael had been overseas, working with the Peace Corps.

“Michael and Lucifer are both still in Lawrence,” Cas offers. “Lucifer moved out into his own apartment last year, however. I gather Michael disapproved of the decision, but they refuse to discuss the matter with me, though Lucifer did tell me that he worries about the fact that Michael hasn’t taken a mate.”

“But Lucifer hasn’t mated either, has he?” Dean asks.

Cas shakes his head. “That’s exactly what I said, but he only told me that Michael’s situation is different. I worry about both of them,” he finishes with a sigh.

“Do they both still hate my guts?” Dean blurts out without thinking, and then he quickly says, “Never mind, don’t answer that. I didn’t—”

“It’s all right,” Cas says. “They disapprove of my coming into contact with you, but they’ve conceded—reluctantly—that it is good for Ariel to know both her fathers.”

Dean turns into the parking lot of the restaurant and parks the car. “I don’t blame them, you know,” he says, and Cas’s hand stops on the door handle before he can press it down.

“Dean, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Dean says, and he and Cas haven’t ever _talked_ about it, probably because neither of them really want the reminder, but Dean can’t seem to stop the words from coming up. “I really fucked up, and I should’ve worked up the nerve to say this years ago, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry for—for being so stupid, for taking advantage of my influence over you, for almost—”

“Dean, stop,” Cas says firmly. “We were kids. We really didn’t know what we were doing. Everyone said that it was too early, said that we shouldn’t go through with the mating, but we did it anyway. It was rash, stupid on both our parts.”

The words are cutting, really fucking painful, because Dean disagrees completely, but he can’t tell whether Cas means them. They were meant to be together—Dean felt it then and still feels it now, with every cell of his being—and the only reason they’re not together is because Dean screwed it all up.

“Still,” he gets out past the lump in his throat, “I’m sorry.”

“Then I forgive you,” Cas says. When Dean turns toward Cas, unable to hide his surprise, Cas adds, “No one deserves to be punished forever, and anyway, it was… it was a long time ago. You’ve been nothing but kind to me since, and you love Ariel. That’s enough.”

Dean can’t exactly sniff out sincerity, but he can definitely smell that Cas is calm, comfortable here despite Dean’s presence, and it should feel good, should feel like they’re making progress— _healing_ , as Charlie put it last week—but Dean still aches all over, wishes he could lean into Cas’s space and kiss him, wishes that he could take a breath without _wanting_ so fucking bad.

“Thanks, then,” he manages to say, hoping that Cas can’t sense his frustration. They’re silent for a moment, and then Dean gestures toward the restaurant and says, “Shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering about the reference to "Stanford winning the axe back," what I'm talking about is the Big Game between Stanford and Cal (UC Berkeley) that happens each fall. (Yes, it's normally not in August, and technically Stanford already has the axe right now so they'd just be keeping it but shhh pretend you don't know those details.) Basically whichever team wins the Big Game gets to keep the axe for that year. Anyway, the implication is that Dean went to Cal while Sam went to Stanford.


	3. Chapter 3

The banquet hall that Crowley chose as the site of the benefit is about as extravagant as Dean had expected it to be, and he feels out of place. He and his family have always been middle class at best, never upper, and even though this isn’t his first time at such a fancy-schmancy place, he still feels like the odd one out.

“C’mon, let’s find our table,” Dean says, heading toward the front.

Cas follows about half a step behind him, and Dean looks around, trying to find Benny among the groups of socializing guests. Suddenly there’s a firm grip on his elbow, pulling him to an abrupt stop, and Dean turns to ask Cas what the hell he’s doing, but before he can get the words out, Cas does a little gesture with his chin that Dean probably should not find as adorable as he does. But he takes the hint and turns just in time to hear—

“Dean-o!”

Fucking Adler. Dean slaps a smile on his face and says, “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Adler.”

And wow, how did he miss Adler’s wife coming his way? She must be wearing enough perfume—fucking _rancid_ , to Dean’s nose—to make a skunk faint.

“I see you and Castiel are getting along well,” Adler observes, and Dean’s about to respond, but Adler’s wife speaks up first.

“Nonsense, dear. They clearly aren’t getting along well, if Dean is leaving his omega without an escort.”

“But Dean _is_ escorting me,” Cas says.

Mrs. Adler giggles, and Dean _hates_ her for being amused at Cas’s inexperience. But she is the boss’s wife, and Dean is not indispensable to the company, so he can’t offend her.

Yet.

So Dean extends his arm to Cas, who takes it after a moment of hesitation. “Better?” Dean says, and the bitch _beams_.

“Much,” she says primly, and then she turns to Adler and says, “Come, let’s speak to Hester. She’s been in Europe for far too long.”

“Excuse us,” Adler says, and Dean just nods and smiles.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Dean says, low enough that only Cas will hear, “I hate that woman.”

Cas chuckles, and the sound lightens Dean’s mood pretty much instantaneously. Jesus, Dean hadn’t even realized how much he missed Cas’s grounding effect on him until this very moment.

They locate their seats—the table is front and center, with eight seats, and yeah, Crowley’s definitely hoping that Dean’s gonna slip up, if he’s gone so far as to put Dean right in everyone’s view. Dean pulls Cas’s chair out for him, waits for him to sit, and pushes his chair back in before taking his own seat. Cas stifles a laugh, but it doesn’t escape Dean’s notice.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just—that was ridiculously gentleman-like of you.”

Dean shoves down the disbelief he feels at Cas talking so freely with him and manages to scrape enough brain cells together to go for a mock-affronted response. “What, I can’t be a gentleman?”

Cas only smiles, and Dean’s about to argue that he can be a perfect gentleman when the situation calls for it, but a hand falls on his shoulder, and he looks up.

“Benny, hey,” Dean says, going to stand, but Benny holds him down with the hand that’s still on his shoulder.

“Don’t have to get up, brother,” Benny says before moving to pull Andrea’s chair out for her.

“Thank you, dear,” Andrea says, taking her seat.

Benny drops into the chair next to Dean’s, and Cas says, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are not Mr. and Mrs. Olsson.”

Benny grins. “Nah, but Ty’s an old college buddy of mine, and I talked him into switching seats. Good eye, though,” he replies.

Andrea clears her throat then, and Dean says, “Oh, right. Andrea, this is Cas. Cas, Andrea.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Cas says.

“Likewise,” Andrea replies with a smile. Then she asks, “Why didn’t you come over with Dean last night?”

Dean promptly freezes up, because he’d assumed that Benny had explained Dean and Cas’s situation to his wife already, at least a little bit, but apparently he hasn’t said a thing, and Dean has no clue what to say to save Cas.

But Cas just says, “Oh, Dean and I are not romantically involved. We’re attending as friends.”

“Oh!” Andrea says, clearly surprised. “Oh, sorry—I just assumed, because—”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Cas says with a polite smile.

Andrea turns mock-accusing eyes on Benny and says, “Why didn’t you say anything, hmm?”

“Because it’s none of your business, darlin’,” Benny responds.

Andrea lets out a put-upon sigh, looking over at Dean and Cas. “He never tells me anything,” she laments. Benny shakes his head, a harassed expression on his face that it seems only Andrea is able to coax out of him, and Dean chuckles.

“How long have you two been together?” Cas asks.

“Oh god, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Andrea says, brow scrunched up in thought.

“Oh, go on, out with it,” Benny says. “We both know you know.” Looking over at Cas, Benny adds, “She only does this to test whether or not _I_ know.”

“And _do_ you know?” Cas asks.

Before Andrea or Benny can say anything, Crowley comes to the table. “Evening, lady and gentlemen,” he says with his trademark smirk, and Dean inclines his head in acknowledgement.

The woman on Crowley’s arm is unfamiliar, and her scent is almost abnormally neutral—every person, alpha, beta, or omega, gives off a pretty unique scent, and while people occasionally smell similar, Dean doesn’t think he’s ever encountered someone who draws a blank.

Crowley frowns at Benny but doesn’t comment on the seat change, opting instead to pull his companion forward. “This is Jody Mills, one of tonight’s speakers,” he says.

They proceed to go through the tedious task of making introductions. Dean might’ve worried about Cas when they were still en route to the event, but by the time Crowley and Jody have taken their seats, Cas has proven that he’s perfectly capable of handling himself, and Dean relaxes.

* * *

About fifteen minutes after dinner is served, the first speaker gets up to talk about how much good Akron’s Children’s Hospital does for youths of all ages, and how much the hospital has benefited from Sandover’s generous contributions. Dean pretty much tunes him and the next two speakers out, because he’s not interested, and all three of them are old and crusty and monotonous. It might also be because he’s sort of retreating into himself to try and ignore Cas’s scent.

The fourth speaker of the night is Jody, so Dean perks up and pays attention. He learns that she’s a sheriff whose only son died of pneumonia because there were insufficient resources to treat him at the time. Instead of holding a grudge against the hospital, Jody began lobbying for donations so that other people wouldn’t have to go through what she did.

The whole table is very solemn when she resumes her seat, and she chuckles.

“Everybody okay here?” she says, smiling.

“We’re all in awe of your strength,” Andrea says, and Jody goes red, laughing a little.

“It’s nothing,” she says, waving it off.

Then someone else is at the podium, excusing them from their tables to mingle, and god, Dean hates this part of the night because he has to be polite and freakin’ fake.

“We stickin’ together tonight?” Dean mutters in Benny’s general direction as people start getting out of their chairs.

“If that’s what you want,” Benny responds, standing and extending his arm to Andrea.

Dean does the same for Cas, and then they’re leaving the tabled area to go socialize with the others. It goes well enough, despite Dean’s dread. Traveling in a group of four makes the introductions flow more smoothly, and Dean can get away with saying less without coming off as rude or disinterested.

Maybe twenty minutes into the mingling time, Dean gets thirsty and excuses himself to go to one of the punch bowls that have been set up around the room. Once there, he ladles punch into two glass tumblers and turns around to head back to the others. It takes a moment for him to spot them, but as soon as he does, warning sirens go off in his head—some alpha is talking to Cas, has managed to herd him away from Benny and Andrea, who are stuck talking to another couple.

The world takes on a red tint, and Dean has to force himself to stay calm. Deep breaths. Loose hands. Don’t break the fucking punch glasses—it’ll look too much like blood, and oh Jesus, Dean really doesn’t need anything that’ll encourage the alpha inside him to spill _actual_ blood.

The asshole who’s talking to Cas is an older man, kinda short, dressed in a neat, pinstriped suit, dark hair slicked back and curling at the nape of his neck. He carries an overpowering smell of musty, old books, with an undercurrent of some kind of tea—chrysanthemum, or something herbal, Dean thinks, but he can’t be sure—and the definite signal of a cruising alpha.

Dean’s never seen the guy before, but he already hates him emphatically.

As Dean draws nearer, he catches a glimpse of Benny from the corner of his eye, and when he looks closer, he notes that his friend looks worried, distracted from the couple that he and Andrea are engaged in conversation with.

Deep breaths, Dean. No blood, no guts.

He’s close enough now to smell the subtle discomfort in Cas’s scent, that apple-cinnamon perfection laced with sourness that shouldn’t be there.

Christ, Dean wants to rip that asshole’s lungs out.

He circles around the pair slightly, approaching from behind Cas so that the encroaching alpha will see him coming, but the guy is too focused on his goal, attention never straying from Cas.

“I am… flattered by your interest, but I am not available,” Cas is saying.

“Not available? Nonsense—your mate couldn’t possibly have elected to leave you alone here, not with you smelling the way you do,” the alpha says, swaying closer.

Dean comes right up to Cas’s left side and nudges his arm, and relief, thick and unmistakable, floods Dean’s nose. Cas takes the offered glass of punch, and Dean drapes his arm over Cas’s shoulders, a casual gesture of ownership that he doesn’t even realize he’s making until he’s already going through with it.

“Oh,” the alpha says, caught off guard. His scent changes slightly, but Dean already thought it was unpleasant before, and the shift only has him transitioning from one distasteful flavor to another.

“Dean,” Cas says, a warm smile directed at him. “This is Mr. Armstrong. He works as an in-house pharmacist at the hospital.”

Dean removes his arm from around Cas’s shoulders and shakes Armstrong’s hand. “Dean Winchester,” he says with an exaggeratedly polite smile.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Armstrong says. “I was just getting to know your uh—” his eyes track Dean’s arm as it loops around Cas’s waist, and Dean doesn’t fist pump when Cas allows the contact, but it’s a close thing. “—partner,” he finishes, a subtle twist to his lips the only visible indication of his displeasure.

“Yeah, I saw that,” Dean says levelly.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, and then Armstrong excuses himself, claiming to have spotted an old friend.

As soon as Armstrong is gone, Cas takes a step away from Dean, and just that bit of space between them makes Dean ache. Being allowed to hold Cas, to touch him like they were still together, must have tricked some completely irrational, instinctual part of Dean’s brain into thinking they were still an item, that they were still mates, and losing that contact is like losing Cas all over again.

“Thank you, but that was unnecessary,” Cas says. “I can take care of myself.”

“That guy was a few cheap lines away from putting his hands on you, Cas,” Dean says, frowning.

“And I would have stopped him. What do you think I did for the years that we weren’t together, hmm? Do you think I really would have stood still and taken it?”

“Cas—”

“I would have resisted, if it came to that. He isn’t my mate, after all.”

And that’s—that’s a low fucking blow, and Cas knows it. “Say what you want, but you can’t lie to me. I know you were relieved that I intervened,” Dean says.

“So I thanked you,” Cas says. “Still, it was unnecessary.”

Then Benny and Andrea appear, taking away Dean’s chance to respond. It’s just as well, though, because he has no clue what he would have said.

“Who was that man you were talking to?” Andrea asks Cas. “He seemed quite taken with you.”

“He was a pharmacist,” Cas responds.

“That’s very respectable,” Andrea comments.

Dean holds back the snarl that’s building up in the back of his throat at this topic of conversation, because god, it’s one thing to know that Cas is in a committed relationship with another alpha—Dean’s had plenty of time to adjust to that reality—but having to listen to them discussing _prospects_ with Cas’s mate—not-mate—standing right the fuck in front of them—

Meanwhile, Cas answers Andrea with a bland, “Yes, it is.”

“Cas is in a committed relationship right now,” Benny says then, and Dean takes a long drink from his glass because he so does not want to be here for this conversation.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Andrea asks.

“I didn’t think it was important,” Cas replies with a nonchalant shrug. Then he frowns and says, voice lowered, “Don’t all turn at once, but Mr. Crowley appears to be giving us an undue amount of attention.”

Dean counts to ten, allowing Benny and Andrea to look around first, before turning his head and finding Crowley in the crowd of people, standing with Jody. He’s looking over in their direction, and when he meets Dean’s eyes, the fucker _winks_. What the hell?

“Don’t mind him,” Dean says. “I’m pretty sure he’s just playing mind games.”

Benny gives Dean a quick look of consternation but verbally agrees with him, saying something about how Crowley’s a piece of work. Of course, Dean knows what his friend is concerned about—he probably shouldn’t have gotten all territorial over Cas. But what did Benny expect him to do, just stand back and let some asshole chat Cas up?

Fortunately, the rest of the night passes uneventfully, and Dean drops Cas off at home around half past ten.

Once home, he strips out of his jacket, removes his tie, and undoes the first few buttons of his shirt. Then he heads for the liquor cabinet, because he needs a drink—preferably something stronger than the fruity crap that they served tonight.

Dean’s only just poured himself a glass of whiskey when he hears a light buzzing, quickly followed by gentle vibrations against his leg. He pulls out his phone and sees an unfamiliar number. Frowning, he takes a sip of alcohol before answering.

“Who’s this?”

“What, no hello?”

Dean might be mistaken, but that voice and that accent sound a hell of a lot like—“Crowley?”

“So you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least you’re not the dullest.”

“What do you want?” Dean asks—he doesn’t have the patience for this right now.

“Not one for foreplay, are you? Straight to business, then. Dean, you _do_ know that there are consequences to fucking your secretary, don’t you?”

“I’m not—we haven’t—we’re not fucking,” Dean says, irritable because he really doesn’t like talking about his relationship with Cas, and it’s even worse that this is friggin’ _Crowley_ he’s talking to.

“Is that so?” Crowley says, tone laced with skepticism. “Then what do you call your beautiful display earlier tonight? Gallantry? Saving your pretty little blue-eyed damsel in distress out of the goodness of your noble heart?”

“I call it helping out a friend,” Dean says through gritted teeth.

“Call it whatever you want, but I was the one watching from the outside, and I know what it looked like—what you _wanted_ it to look like.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’re hot for that little piece of ass—don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Why the hell are we talking, Crowley? Is there a point to this?” Dean blurts out.

“Yes, of course there’s a point,” Crowley says, and Dean can practically see the guy rolling his eyes. “I can have darling little Cas on the streets in no time if you piss me off. And you know what a scandal like this would do for him, don’t you? An omega who’s seduced his boss into sleeping with him for reasons unknown… he’d never be hired again—at least, not at any respectable business.”

“Cas isn’t—” Dean holds back a groan. “Look, I get it. You’ve got a ton of power, or leverage—whatever. What do you _want_ from me?”

“I just want you to realize that it is in your best interests to keep my interests a priority. _You_ are working for _me_. I shouldn’t have to be kept waiting, only to get subpar work, Dean.”

“What—and you couldn’t just tell Adler to put a tighter leash on me?” Dean says, incredulous. “What is the point of threatening me like this?”

“It’s much more effective, don’t you think? You’re certainly giving me more attention now than you’ve ever given Zachariah, that poof.”

Dean sighs. “Okay, then. Message received. Comprendo. Are we done here?”

“You tell me.”

“We’re done,” Dean says, and hangs up before Crowley can say anything else. “Dick,” Dean mutters to the empty room. Then he pockets his cell phone, downs the rest of the alcohol, and pours himself another glass.

* * *

Dean’s been pulling way too many late nights recently, but he’s got last night’s banquet to thank for the current mess he’s in. He was supposed to be using that evening to prep all the information for use today, and he’d had it all planned out, but the banquet threw a wrench in his plans—fuck Crowley and his vindictive streak, seriously—so here he is, slaving away at his desk.

He tried to get Cas to go home three hours ago, but there’s still light under the door to Cas’s office, and it’s already two in the morning. Cas is reformatting Excel spreadsheets and placing them in a Dropbox for Dean—essentially, he’s doing what Dean had originally planned to do yesterday evening. Every six or seven minutes, Dean gets the data from another branch of the company.

Dean’s already nodded off and jolted awake three or four times, and he’s probably already had more coffee today than is healthy for the average human being. Still, between one report and the next, he leans back in his chair to rest his eyes for just a sec, and without even realizing it, he falls asleep.

* * *

Dean wakes to a sweet, perfect scent and a jacket being draped over his shoulders. He inhales deeply, sleepily, and opens his eyes a crack.

“Cas,” he breathes, and thinks, _mate_.

Cas nods, a small smile on his face, and says, “Go back to sleep, Dean. You need to rest.”

“Mm,” Dean hums, reaching up and brushing Cas’s cheek.

He leans forward, drunk on Cas, and is about to plant one right on his lips when he realizes that Cas has gone completely still under his fingertips, and _shit_ , not-mate.

“Aw, fuck,” Dean swears, because of _course_ he would go ahead and fuck it all up just when everything seemed to be going so smoothly. “Sorry. Shit, Cas, ‘m sorry,” he says, and if it takes him an extra second to actually pull his hand away from Cas’s cheek, well… the damage has been done already, right?

But Cas doesn’t look angry, doesn’t give off any signs of distress, doesn’t shove at Dean, and when he opens his mouth, what comes out is, “It’s all right, Dean.”

“What?” Dean asks, blinking stupidly, because it’s the middle of the night and he’s still a little drowsy, and Cas is supposed to be pissed off.

“It’s all right,” Cas repeats, lifting the jacket from Dean’s lap—it must have slipped off when Dean lost his goddamn mind and leaned forward to kiss Cas—and hooking it back over his shoulders, pressing him into the back of his chair to pin it in place. “Sleep.”

“You’re not mad,” Dean observes oh-so-intelligently, and Cas shakes his head.

“No. Now sleep, Dean.”

And okay, yeah, sleep sounds like a great idea, now that Dean knows Cas isn’t mad. But why isn’t Cas mad? He should be, shouldn’t he?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already said this in the note for my other WIP, but in case you're not following it, I just wanted to let you know that I'm back at home now, which means that updates won't come quite as often bc my mother severely limits my time on the computer during her waking hours, which means a lot of the writing's gonna have to be done when she's asleep and/or not around. I'll keep updating when I can, but I just wanted to give you guys a bit of a heads-up.
> 
> **ETA: You can keep up with my progress and/or thoughts about this fic by tracking the[pinkverse tag](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/pinkverse) on tumblr.**

Dean wakes up feeling disoriented. He’s—vertical? And kinda cold—also weird. He cracks his eyes open and sees the interior of his office, which explains everything. He fell asleep in his chair.

A jolt of panic has him suddenly sitting up straight, dislodging a jacket from his shoulders. But Dean barely registers the cheap cloth bunching up in his lap as he scoots forward in his seat, moving his mouse a little to wake up his computer. There was a reason why Dean stayed the night here, and he definitely does not remember finishing the report for Crowley before nodding off.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The screen comes on, and he types his password in. The report shows up on screen, still not even halfway done, and goddamn it, how is Dean gonna explain this? Crowley only _just_ threatened him with firing Cas the other night. How—maybe if Dean went directly to Adler. But Crowley’s one of the main shareholders, and Dean’s almost positive Adler wouldn’t want to piss Crowley off over a matter as “insignificant” as an omega.

Checking the time, Dean sees that it’s about seven o’clock, so technically he has two hours to get as much done as he can. And then he’ll… apologize profusely, maybe grovel a little. He’d never do this for himself, but it’s Cas’s livelihood on the line, and Dean _can’t_ be responsible for making him lose his job.

So he clicks over to the Dropbox and waits for it to sync, expecting to find the rest of the reformatted spreadsheets, ready for use. And yeah, those are there, but there’s also a word document named, “For_Dean”. Frowning, Dean double clicks the little icon and waits for the document to open. And—

Jesus Christ.

Cas compiled the data from those spreadsheets and wrote a complete report, from scratch. The style of writing even mimics Dean’s almost perfectly, and Cas certainly didn’t skimp on charts, projections of future revenues—god, how did he even—

Dean leans back in his seat, a sigh of equal parts relief and disbelief falling from his lips. It’s only then that his focus extends to his surroundings, and he notices Cas, curled up on the couch. He’d picked up on Cas’s scent in the room, but he’d attributed it to the jacket, assuming that Cas had finally gone home when Dean knocked out. He should have known better, known that Cas wouldn’t leave the job unfinished. Cas has always been tenacious like that.

“Cas, I’m getting you a raise,” Dean mutters, gathering Cas’s jacket before standing and moving around his desk. He drapes the jacket over Cas’s sleeping form, and it’s ridiculous how unguarded and defenseless Cas looks when he’s unconscious—Dean just wants to crawl onto the couch with him, wrap himself around Cas so no one can get to him.

Dean adjusts the material over Cas’s shoulder, and Cas doesn’t move an inch, meaning that he’s still fast asleep. In a moment of weakness—who knows, maybe he’s still not fully awake, but Cas is asleep and no one’s around, so no one will ever know—Dean slowly lowers himself onto one knee, leaning closer to Cas’s neck and inhaling deeply, the scent of safety and security, of _mate_ , helping him relax.

And then a scene, half-remembered, half-dreamed, floats to the forefront of his mind, an impression of falling asleep in this office, of leaning forward to kiss Cas, and was that… did that really happen?

He backs up and looks down at Cas, dark lashes resting on smooth cheeks, breaths coming slow and even. It takes every ounce of willpower Dean has to pull away, to stop himself from kissing Cas’s face all over, from stealing more of the closeness he’s missed so much.

Dean gets to his feet before he can give in and goes to his desk to print the report out. He’ll drop it off with Crowley’s secretary and then maybe go home for a shower and a change of clothes.

* * *

Around two in the afternoon, Dean gets a call from Lisa on the office phone. “Dude, did you lose my cell phone number or something?” Dean asks when he realizes that it’s Lisa.

“You weren’t answering, dumbass.”

“My phone’s right here,” Dean says, pulling it out of his pocket.

“Then you’re deaf _and_ dumb,” Lisa says.

“Aw, shit,” Dean says. “The battery’s dead.”

“Okay, just dumb.”

“Give me a break, okay? I fell asleep at the office last night, so I wasn’t exactly able to charge it,” Dean says, putting the phone back into his pocket.

“Whatever you say, Dean,” Lisa says. “Anyway, what’re you doing tonight?”

“Hmm. Well, I’ve gotta pick up Ariel, but if you wanted to get dinner, we could meet you somewhere.”

“I was actually thinking about going to the movies. We still haven’t seen _Despicable Me 2_ , and Ben’s been talking about seeing it for a few weeks, so—”

“Uh, yeah. Should be fine,” Dean says. “I don’t think Ariel’s seen it yet, but I doubt she’d mind watching it again even if she did. She loves the minions.”

Lisa laughs. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Touché.” Then there’s a beeping sound, and Dean says, “Hey uh, I’ve got another call coming in. But I’m picking Ariel up from Cas’s around five thirty, so I’ll give you a call when I’ve got her—maybe we can all grab dinner before the movie.”

“Okay, sounds great. See you later, Dean.”

“Yep,” Dean says. He switches to the other line then and says, “Winchester here.”

“A Gwen Campbell is here to see you,” Cas says, slight emphasis on the last name because of _course_ Cas would recognize Mom’s maiden name—Cas remembers everything.

“Send her in,” Dean says with a slight frown.

He doesn’t know Mom’s side of the family very well because her relationship with her father is strained—has been for as long as Dean can remember. Dean doesn’t know many of the details, but Dad let slip once that Samuel threatened to disown Mom if she ran off with Dad, but she went ahead and did it anyway. Things cooled off over the years, of course, but Samuel stayed distant from Sam and Dean and especially Dad. It’s strange, then, for one of the Campbells to be visiting.

The door opens, and in steps a short, dark-haired woman who is a few years older than Dean, if memory serves. Her scent is pleasant enough, evergreen trees and that distinct smell that lingers in the air after it rains. “Hi,” she says, smile open and friendly but eyes sharp and assessing—the contrast is jarring to say the least and also conflicts with the vibes her scent gives off. “You must be Dean Winchester.”

“That’s what the sign on the door says,” Dean replies, getting up to shake her hand.

“My god, you have delicate features for an alpha.”

Dean blinks. “Excuse me?”

Gwen shakes her head. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just expected more of the brooding, muscular type.” Dean only raises his eyebrows as he resumes his seat, and Gwen says, “Never mind. Let me just get to the reason why I’m here. Samuel—that is, our grandfather passed away.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Dean gets the feeling that Gwen is waiting for him to say something else, but he has nothing to say—honestly, what is he _supposed_ to say? He hardly knew the man, and he feels pretty much nothing for him.

Finally, Gwen says, “The funeral will be next Saturday. We would like you to attend.”

“Look, no offense, but why?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Why do you want me at the funeral? I may be wrong, but I’ve always been under the impression that the old man hated us. Besides, we’re not even Campbells.”

Gwen smiles sadly. “You may not be one of us by name, but you’re still blood, and that mattered a lot to Samuel.” Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Gwen continues, “Look, Dean, I don’t know how much your mom told you about us, but we have some very longstanding traditions regarding family, and whether you like it or not, you’re part of this family.”

“What, are you trying to say Samuel treated all of his grandkids the way he treated us? Y’know, acting like we didn’t exist?”

“I’m sorry about that. But in death, all grudges are dropped. Hates forgotten, debts cleared, conflicts reconciled. You and Samuel—”

“Let me just stop you right there. That—that is a load of bullshit. So, what? You die, and suddenly everything’s fine? Just a nice, clean slate?”

“Why not? We don’t take any worldly possessions with us when we die, so why should we bring along our grudges and our hate?”

Dean shakes his head. “I just don’t buy it, Gwen. Why are you here, anyway? Shouldn’t my mom be calling me about this or something?”

“Another tradition. When a family member dies, the living travel to spread the message because grief is better shared in person,” Gwen replies. “I know you didn’t care for the man, but I just came from speaking with your mother, and she and John are attending. So even if you don’t want to attend for Samuel’s sake, shouldn’t you do it for your mother’s?”

Dean sighs, because he can’t argue this point. “Yeah. Yeah, I will. What time is the funeral?”

“It’ll be a morning service, at around 11am. Burial is in the afternoon. We can put you and your mate up at a hotel, or—”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up. Mate?”

Gwen narrows her eyes at Dean. “You _are_ mated, aren’t you?”

“Uh. Yeah. But we’re not together anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter. He’s still fam—”

“The hell he is!” Dean argues. “Maybe you can rope me into this, but at least I’m actually family. You can’t just force some unrelated person to—”

“But he _is_ related, Dean. It’s—”

“Gwen, if you mention tradition one more time, I swear—”

“Okay, fine,” Gwen says. “I’ll pay him a visit myself.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dean says, even as he realizes that Gwen must not know Dean’s mate is Cas. In all likelihood, she’s about to go do some digging through Dean’s past, which— _really?_

“Well, if you’re not together anymore, it’s his choice whether or not he’s going to go, not yours.”

“Samuel never even met the guy,” Dean says. “It makes no sense.”

“You may not put the same emphasis on tradition that we do, but you’re not going to change the way we do things,” Gwen replies. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you could give me his contact information. You don’t have to, but I’ll find him one way or another, so you might as well save me the trouble.”

“He’s just in the other room,” Dean says. “And he’s not gonna go.”

“That’s for him to decide then, isn’t it?” Gwen says.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Then Gwen says, “By the other room, you mean—”

“Yeah, Cas is my assistant,” Dean says. “You probably won’t be talking to anyone else who works here, but if you do, keep our past relationship on the down low, got it?”

“Of course,” Gwen says. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” After a pause, she says, “I’ll see you next week, then. Will you be taking that hotel room?”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Dean says. “I’ll drive up on Friday, so you can book Friday and Saturday night.”

“Why can’t you just fly? It’s like an eight hour drive from here to New York, and that’s without stopping to eat or get gas,” Gwen says.

“Not a fan of planes,” Dean answers.

“Ah. Suit yourself, I guess. I’ll go talk to your mate, now. Cas, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Thanks, Dean.”

“Mhmm,” Dean grunts—he’d like to forbid Gwen from talking to Cas, but hell, he doesn’t have the right to do so. Cas isn’t his mate anymore, is barely even his _friend_.

Gwen exits the room then, and Dean makes a mental note to call Mom later tonight to check up on her. But until then, he should get back to work.

Dean’s just finishing up an email to Adler notifying him of his impending absence when there’s a light knock on the door, and then Cas steps inside. Dean only spares him a quick glance, still a little embarrassed by whatever he might have almost done last night. “Hey,” he says.

“Hello, Dean. I—”

It suddenly hits Dean that Cas must have just finished talking to Gwen, so he blurts out, “You don’t have to go.”

“What?”

“To the funeral, I mean. You don’t have to go to the funeral. You never even met Samuel.”

Cas smiles faintly. “That’s very considerate of you, but I told Gwen that I’d attend.”

At first, Dean thinks he’s heard wrong—why the hell would Cas go to the funeral if he didn’t know the guy? But Cas is still looking at him, expression neutral, so Dean asks, “Why?”

“I’m respecting a deceased man’s wishes,” Cas says. “Besides, it’s only one day, and it’d be nice to see Sam again.” After a pause, Cas says, “Unless… unless you don’t want me to go—Gwen left her phone number with me. I could call to cancel.”

“No, that’s—that’s fine,” Dean says. “So are you uh, are you planning to fly up?”

“I suppose I could,” Cas replies, but there’s a little downward twist to his lips, and yeah, that makes sense—between paying the rent and supporting a five-year-old child, Cas doesn’t have the money to spare for a plane ticket, and he hates having to ask Balthazar for money.

“Well I’m gonna be driving up on Friday, so if you wanted we could go half and half on gas?”

Cas smiles at this. “I would appreciate that very much, thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Dean responds, and god, with Cas smiling at him so freely, it feels like he’s in the middle of a dream. Dean’s almost afraid to blink, afraid to breathe, afraid to do anything that’ll end this miracle of a moment.

Then Cas asks, “Would you be able to take Ariel directly from daycare today?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says. Usually, Balthazar goes and gets her around four and just hangs out with her at Cas’s apartment until Cas gets off work, so Dean asks, “What, is Balthazar busy with something else?”

Cas lets out a tired sigh. “He wanted to take me to some high-end restaurant tonight, but I persuaded him to eat in instead. Of course, that only shifted his goal, and now he aims to put together some ridiculously complicated set of dinner courses, so—”

“So he doesn’t have time to pick Ariel up. I get it,” Dean says.

“Yes,” Cas confirms. After a pause, he says, “I’ll go back to my desk now. Again, thank you.”

Dean nods in acknowledgement, and Cas backs out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

It really bothers Dean that Balthazar is setting up what most definitely is going to be a romantic dinner for Cas. The bastard planned it for a weekend when Ariel wouldn’t be there—Dean has no doubts about his intentions. What’s worse is that this whole thing—this date night—is entirely _normal_. Dean’s got no right to be mad about it, no right to feel wronged by Cas or Balthazar. It’s been years, he reminds himself, and he and Cas are way, way over.

At times like this, he wonders if something’s wrong with him, if he should have been over this long ago. After all, he’s sure that Dad was okay the year or so that he and Mom separated—okay enough to have fathered Adam, at least. But Mom and Dad separated for different reasons, and Dean—well, this is probably Dean’s punishment for fucking up.

Feeling sorry for himself won’t change a thing, so Dean does his best to lock those thoughts away, because there’s still work for him to do. He looks over at his computer and right, he’d been writing that email to Adler. Now that he knows Cas will be coming along to the funeral, he might as well edit the email to include him, too.

Shit, how the hell will he explain the fact that they’re working together to his family?

* * *

Dean ends up picking Ben up from daycare because he’s already there to grab Ariel anyway, so the three of them head over to Lisa’s together for dinner of homemade mac n’ cheese with bacon bits, and broccoli on the side.

Turns out Ariel has indeed seen _Despicable Me 2_ already—Balthazar took her last week, no surprise there—but as predicted, she’s completely on board with seeing it again, so they head to the movies after dinner. The movie is good, but Dean still thinks the first was better, which is about par for the course when it comes to cartoon sequels.

After all the excitement, Ariel is worn out enough that she knocks out in the car on the way home, so Dean carries her inside and tucks her into bed.

“Good night, my little angel,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Ariel smiles a little in her sleep but doesn’t stir, and Dean leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Then he walks down the hall to the kitchen, where he opens the fridge and grabs himself a beer. After taking a few long gulps, he takes his phone out of his pocket and thumbs down to Mom’s number.

Mom picks up on the third ring. “Dean, honey. I’ve been expecting your call,” she says.

“Yeah, sorry I didn’t call earlier. I took Ariel to the movies,” Dean says, and god, that sounds so friggin’ selfish—he should have taken at least a few minutes to call his mom about her dead father—

“Oh, it’s fine,” Mom says, and he can hear a warm smile in her voice. “It’s better to spend time on the living—the dead don’t appreciate your time anyway.”

It doesn’t make Dean feel much better, but at least she’s not angry with him. “How are you doing?”

“I’m not gonna lie—it isn’t… it isn’t _easy_ ,” Mom says quietly. “I try not to be too broken up about it, especially in front of your father, but… the truth is, I may not remember every single fight we had, because really, we fought more times than I can count, but I can’t forget every time that I… that I wished he was dead.”

“Oh god, Mom…” Dean says, heart aching with sympathy.

“No, I’m fine, really,” Mom says, but her voice is shaking a little, and Christ, she’s really about to cry. She’s hardly ever cried in front of Sam and Dean, always had some sort of woman-of-steel thing going on, and now that her strength is wavering, Dean feels his eyes start to prickle.

“It’s not your fault,” Dean says. “That was just—I mean, practically every teenager wishes their parents were dead at some point. You weren’t in your teens anymore, but Grandpa wasn’t exactly a supportive dad, so it’s—it’s okay.”

Mom laughs a little, but he definitely catches a sniffle, and when she starts talking again, her voice quavers in the way that it does when she cries. “Thank you, baby,” she says, and Dean doesn’t have the heart to get on her case about still calling him her baby even though he’s twenty-four years old. She continues, “I can’t talk to your father about this, you know.”

She breaks down then, subdued little sounds that are more painful to listen to than outright bawling would be because she’s trying so hard to hold it all in, and god, Dean just wants to hug her. “It’s okay, Mom,” he says, wishing there was something more he could do. He takes another drink from the bottle that’s still in his hand, and he _would_ go to sit on the couch, but his legs aren’t on board with moving at the moment, so he stays standing in the kitchen, halfway between the counter and the dining table.

Finally, Mom’s crying subsides, transitions into long, shuddery breaths, and she says, “Would it sound extremely manipulative if I asked whether or not you were planning to come to the funeral now?”

A laugh bursts out of Dean before he can stop it, but at least Mom is laughing too—interrupted by hiccups now and then but laughing nonetheless. Able to move now that the tension’s considerably died down, Dean steps back to lean against the counter behind him. Then he answers, “Yeah. Yeah, Mom, you have an infallible knack for strategy.”

Their laughter fades, and Mom says, “But in all seriousness, will you be able to come?”

“Of course. Nothing comes before family,” Dean replies.

“It’s just that I know you were never fond of your grandfather—not your fault, but—”

“Not to be disrespectful, but I’m not going for him, Mom. I’m going for you.”

“Oh, good. I would have hated trying to convince you to come for his sake.”

“I’d never make you deal with this on your own,” Dean says, because they both know Dad isn’t good with emotions—hell, Dean’s positive that that’s where his own issues come from. Having Dad as the sole source of emotional support at a time like this is like being stuck in a canoe in the middle of the ocean with a friggin’ spork for a paddle.

Dean says as much to Mom, metaphor and all, and is relieved to hear her giggle. “That’s… surprisingly accurate,” she comments, and he can practically hear the smile in her voice.

They’re companionably silent for a while, and then Dean says, “They invited Cas.”

“Yes, I—I know,” Mom replies.

“So the tradition thing is for real.”

“Yes,” Mom confirms. When Dean doesn’t say anything else, Mom asks, tentatively, “Is he coming?”

Dean sighs, a short, unhappy sound that he just can’t stifle. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

“Is everything all right between the two of you?”

“Yeah, it’s great.” Oh and by the way, Cas is working for Dean as his secretary, which has led to more fantasies about office sex than any sane person should have. Yeah, that’d go over well.

“Oh come on, Dean. I’m old, not stupid.”

“You’re not old either,” Dean says.

“That’s sweet, but you’re avoiding the question.”

“It’s as all right as it can be,” Dean says resignedly.

“Anything I can do?”

“No, not really. Thanks for asking, though.”

“Have you met anyone recently?” Mom asks.

“Nah,” Dean says, and takes another drink.

“You’re not even looking, are you?”

Dean considers lying, but hell, Mom would see—or hear, whatever—right through it, anyway. “No,” he answers. “There’s no one else.”

“Dean, there are billions of people in the world. Please don’t say there’s no one else.”

“It’s true,” Dean says. He can sense that Mom isn’t gonna let this go, so he tries to stop her before she really gets going. “Can we not talk about this?”

“Dean,” Mom says with a heavy sigh. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I _am_ happy, Mom.”

“No. What you are is content.”

“Yeah well, content is enough for me,” Dean says.

“Is it?”

“Yeah.”

Mom sighs again. “I can’t tell you how to live your life, but I just… I wish you wouldn’t settle. You deserve to be happy, Dean—you can’t punish yourself forever.”

“I’m not—look, I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Mom says. “I’ll see you next weekend. And take care of yourself, Dean.”

“I will. Love you, Mom.”

“Love you too, Dean.”

* * *

It’s Sunday afternoon, and Benny’s coming over to watch a football game—or rather, two games: the Chiefs are playing the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Benny’s Saints are playing the Atlanta Falcons. The games are being covered by two different networks, so they’ll be switching back and forth between the two channels.

Ariel’s in her room, probably playing with her stuffed animals, an activity that typically occupies two to three hours of her time—since they only finished lunch about an hour ago, she won’t be coming out anytime soon.

The buzzer sounds, and Dean sets the six-pack of beer down on the coffee table before going over to open the building door for Benny. He turns away from the door to go to the kitchen, but Ariel comes skidding into his way, looking excited.

“Was that Uncle Benny? Is he here?” she asks.

“Yep, that was him,” Dean answers, unlocking the door and slipping past Ariel to get to the kitchen. He pours a large plate of tortilla chips and turns off the stove—it’s been on low to keep the nacho cheese warm. Then he goes through the cupboards to look for salsa and guac, because it’s there. Somewhere.

Dean has just emerged from the kitchen, triumphant, when the front door opens to admit Benny.

“Uncle Benny! Uncle Benny!” Ariel says, hopping up and down.

“Hey, how’s my best girl?” Benny says, squatting to give Ariel a hug.

Dean chuckles and goes to set the plate of nachos down. When he turns back around, Benny is standing with his hands behind his back, and Ariel is whining.

“But I _saw_ it!”

“Saw what?” Benny asks. He holds out his right hand to show her that it’s empty, followed by his left, and it’s obvious that he’s shuffling whatever junk food he’s brought for Ariel this time behind his back.

“No, you’re a liar,” Ariel says, and Dean just leans against the wall to watch this play out.

“You saw my hands. I’ve got nothin’,” Benny says.

“Same time, same time!” Ariel insists.

“Same time, what?”

“Both hands at the same time!” Ariel elaborates, and Benny smiles.

“Okay, you caught me, Uncle Benny’s a liar,” he says, and surrenders a bag of Doritos.

“Yay!” Ariel rejoices, waving the bag of chips around, and then she punches Benny in the thigh.

“Aw, what was that for?” Benny asks, mock-hurt all over his face.

“That’s what you get for lying! Lying is bad.”

“Oh, I see. But you know what else is bad?”

Ariel looks up from her bag of chips and asks, eyes wide, “What?”

“Hitting people who care about you,” Benny says, and then he scoops Ariel up with one arm hooked under her armpits and wrapped around her chest, leaving his other hand free to tickle her. Ariel screams, shrill and excited, and tries to wriggle out of Benny’s grasp.

“Daddy, help! Daddy!”

Dean’s laughing even as he walks over to free her from the tickle-attack, and when he sets her on the ground, she shoots an evil eye at Benny before escaping into her room to eat her chips and plot her vengeance.

“Charlie told me about Samuel,” Benny says a moment later, and Dean sighs.

“Is that all you two do all the time? Just sit around and gossip about the latest news in my life?”

“It ain’t as though we have anything else in common,” Benny says with a shrug, heading over to the couch and grabbing himself a beer. Dean joins him and reaches for the remote control, and as he turns the TV on, Benny says, “Y’know, I should’ve heard about it from you.”

“The guy didn’t really matter to me, all right? It’s not a big deal,” Dean says. “I mean, the only reason I care at all is because my mom loved the guy, and even then she had her issues with him, so.”

“Still, sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, then, I guess.”

“You going to the funeral?”

“Yeah. I’m taking Friday off to drive up.”

“Right, fear of flying.”

“Planes crash, okay? I don’t get why everyone thinks it’s so weird,” Dean says.

“Hey, no need to get defensive. I accept you, brother.”

“Oh, shut the hell up.”


	5. Chapter 5

It should probably be illegal to drive with an omega in the vehicle. Or at least Cas. Cas shouldn’t be allowed in cars or elevators or broom closets or _cars_ or any enclosed spaces for any length of time, especially if Dean is in said enclosed space. Dean had thought he was doing a good thing, helping Cas out by offering to drive him up there, but now, a big part of him is regretting it.

It’s fucking torture, and frankly, Dean’s surprised they haven’t crashed yet.

Eyes on the road, eyes on the road, _eyes on the road_ , he reminds himself. It’s a mantra he’s been repeating for the past hour that Cas has been asleep. It was a little better when the asshole was awake because at least Dean wouldn’t want to be caught staring, but now that he’s asleep, Dean can technically look all he wants, as long as he doesn’t care about crashing the car and potentially killing the both of them.

Hell, maybe it’d be worth it. Cas is slightly slumped in his seat, face turned toward Dean at the moment, and damn it, no one’s nose should be that perfectly straight.

_Eyes on the road_.

They’re drifting slightly into the next lane, which is empty, thank god, and Dean adjusts the steering wheel to compensate. God, it’ll be a miracle if they get to New York in one piece.

Maybe Cas should drive.

A phone goes off then, startling Dean. It’s not his ringtone, and after a moment, Cas sits up straighter and digs his phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah,” he mumbles grumpily.

Typically annoyance smells kind of cloying, irritating to the nose, but for some reason Cas’s scent mixes extremely well with it. Or maybe Dean’s just addicted to every variant of Cas there possibly is. Yeah, the latter is more likely.

“I’m glad she’s having fun,” Cas is saying in the meantime, sounding a lot more awake. “Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll see you on Sunday. Bye.”

“Balthazar?” Dean asks.

“Yes. He cleared a shelf of DVDs and placed them on the floor for Ariel to alphabetize,” Cas says. “She’s quite precocious.”

“Yeah, just like her daddy,” Dean responds without thinking, and then he bites his lip because he doesn’t even know whether or not he’s allowed to say things like that.

“More like you than me,” Cas says quietly, and Dean shakes his head.

“Hey, don’t say that. You’re definitely smarter than me.”

“If you say so.” Before Dean can say anything else, Cas goes on, “Anyway, Balthazar says that everything is fine. He just wanted to check in with us.”

“Okay, great,” Dean says. A moment later, he asks, “Is he uh—Balthazar, I mean. Is he okay with all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you coming to my grandpa’s funeral. Is he—”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Cas asks. Dean doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just doesn’t. But then Cas says, “Honestly, he wasn’t happy about it. I suppose I can understand why, but… he doesn’t understand the situation between you and me.”

“Does he… I mean, have you ever told him what… what happened?”

“No, of course not. I haven’t lied to him, but I’m—it’s not a story I’m fond of sharing,” Cas says.

“Yeah, I’m with you on that,” Dean says.

“Regardless, attending the funeral was my decision. Balthazar doesn’t get to make that kind of call on my behalf.”

Dean waits for it, but when it doesn’t come, he says, “What, not gonna make any jabs about how he’s not your mate?”

Cas turns his head to look out the window. “I apologize. What I said at the benefit was uncalled for.”

The apology is supposed to make him feel better, but it doesn’t change anything—Dean still feels like crap, and now Cas’s face is turned away. “Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he grumbles.

“I _am_ sorry,” Cas says, and when Dean sneaks a glance at him, his gaze is on his hands now, twisting together in his lap. “You already feel more than enough guilt over your actions—I shouldn’t have tried to add to it.”

“Now you’re just making me uncomfortable. Drop it, all right?” Dean says.

“Very well.”

They lapse into silence then, and Dean reaches over to turn the music up. It doesn’t help.

Then Cas comments, “I still am not fond of your musical preferences.”

“What are you talking about? You love Metallica.”

“I tolerated it because anything associated with you was lined with silver and gold when we were together,” Cas responds nonchalantly, and it’s probably a good sign that Cas can talk about their time together so openly, but Dean isn’t quite there yet. “I much prefer more melodic music.”

“Hey, Metallica’s got ballads,” Dean protests.

Cas shrugs. “They don’t suit my taste.”

“Yeah well, you know the rules. Driver picks the music—”

“Shotgun shuts his cakehole,” Cas finishes, rolling his eyes, and Christ, it’s bittersweet to hear that coming from him. It hurts to be reminded of what they had and what they lost, but Dean thinks it’d probably hurt more if Cas didn’t remember at all—it’s a relief to know that Cas hasn’t forgotten the little things, hasn’t repressed it all.

“Yeah, exactly,” Dean says, shoving his feelings down to a place where they won’t affect him so much.

* * *

It’s just past eleven when they arrive at the hotel, a four-star place that Cas kinda goggles at for a moment before composing himself. Dean forgoes the valet and parks the car himself—no one touches Baby without his say-so—which means he and Cas need to walk a little bit farther to get to the lobby.

When they go through the revolving door, Gwen is there, waiting for them. “Dean, Cas, glad you could make it,” she says.

“What are you, a receptionist?” Dean asks.

“Y’know, you are just how I remembered you, Winchester,” a male voice says from behind Gwen, and maybe disdain isn’t all that evident in his tone of voice, but it’s clear as day in his scent.

Dean looks over and sees an unfamiliar face coming toward him. “Sorry, who are you?”

“Christian. Gwen’s big brother. We met before?” he says.

And now that he mentions it, Dean does have a vague memory of distant cousins coming over to visit when he was maybe nine or ten years old. Gwen hadn’t been there, but Christian had, along with a couple other cousins. He’d been maybe seventeen or eighteen at the time, so Dean hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time with him.

“Oh yeah, right,” Dean says. “And how did you remember me?” he asks even as a voice in his head tells him to just let it go.

Christian shrugs. “Full of yourself and convinced that you were hilarious, despite all the evidence to the contrary.”

Dean opens his mouth to retort, but Cas’s hand circles his wrist, a reminder that he isn’t here to bicker with his cousins. The motion also brings Cas a step closer, and his scent washes over Dean, soothing the alpha instincts that were threatening to rise to the surface.

“Tamed the beast, have you?” Christian says, eyes flicking over to rest on Cas. “You must be the omega who decided that Winchester wasn’t worth keeping around.”

“Christian—” Gwen starts.

“Close,” Cas says, cutting Gwen off, and there’s a sharp edge to Cas’s scent that Dean hasn’t smelled in a long time—this is him angry, aggressive, and holy fuck is it a turn-on, especially when his anger isn’t directed at Dean. “I’m Castiel, the omega who decided that _Winchester_ was worth taking back. Pleased to meet you.”

Christian stares down at the hand that Castiel is offering him, and it takes him a moment to reach out and shake it. Hell, Dean’s in the same boat right now—what the _fuck_ does Cas think he’s doing, telling such a transparent lie? Gwen seems confused too, but Dean thinks his own disbelief must overpower any emotional indicators from the others.

Then Christian says, “You’re a good liar, but I can smell Winchester’s surprise from here. Kind of a giveaway, don’t you think?”

“Cas, you don’t have to—” Dean starts.

“If you know enough to comment on our prior relationship, you should know that it did not end well,” Cas says to Christian, talking right over Dean. “Dean wasn’t prepared to reveal the nature of our current relationship to the rest of his family yet, but I couldn’t stand by and listen to your snide remarks.”

“Is that so?” Christian responds, but he seems to be wavering now.

“Just shut your mouth, Christian,” Gwen says. To Dean and Cas, she says, “I’m sorry—I was originally planning to meet you here on my own, but he insisted on coming with.”

“I wonder why,” Cas says, deadpan, and Christian glares at him but says nothing.

“Here, let’s get you guys checked in,” Gwen says, herding them away from her cousin.

“Yes—thank you, Gwen,” Cas says.

Dean just follows, still working through what just happened. Sure, Christian wasn’t saying anything nice, but words are just words, and in the end, anything he said wouldn’t actually _hurt_ Dean. Honestly, Dean could care less about Christian’s opinion of him. So why does it matter so much to Cas?

They get their room keys—Gwen apparently booked a room for the two of them to share, and Dean is prepared to protest it, but Cas just takes the key and starts toward the elevators on the far side of the lobby, so Dean follows his lead. Gwen doesn’t get into the elevator with them, but just as the doors start to close, a hand shoots out to stop them.

“Look, I shouldn’t have assumed—” Christian starts.

“Save it,” Cas says.

Christian bristles at this. “I’m trying to apologize here, you ungrateful—”

“ _Ungrateful?_ ” Cas interrupts incredulously. “Are we supposed to be _grateful_ that you’re apologizing for being a dick?”

“Why, you little—”

“Christian, please. You’re only making this worse,” Gwen says, grabbing her brother’s hand and pulling it away from the elevator doors. “See you tomorrow morning,” she says to Dean and Cas, and just before the elevator doors close, Dean catches a glimpse of Christian jerking his hand out of Gwen’s grasp and starting to say something.

Dean’s about to speak, but the doors open on the second floor and a couple gets in. It’s then that Dean realizes he doesn’t even know which floor they’re on, but a quick peek at the buttons tells him that they’re headed for the eighth floor—the couple just pushed the button for the ninth.

A few minutes later, they enter their hotel room, and Dean instantly turns on Cas. “What the hell were you thinking, man?”

Cas frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Now Christian and Gwen both think we’re—y’know, _together_ , which means my parents are gonna find out, and Sam too. Are you outta your goddamn mind?”

“I didn’t like the things he was saying to you.”

“Yeah, and neither did I. But you didn’t have to go and say we got back together.”

“It was the first thing that came to mind, after what he said to me. Besides, you _are_ worth—” Cas clamps his mouth shut suddenly, but Dean already knows what he was about to say— _you are worth taking back_.

“I’m worth what?” Dean asks anyway, mouth dry.

Cas just shakes his head and turns away, walking farther into the room. Dean’s heart is racing, because consciously or not, he’s been wishing that he and Cas could go back or that they could start over, and this is the only hint Dean’s ever gotten that it might be even remotely possible. He knows that he and Cas have been on friendly terms lately, but it seems like he’s officially back in Cas’s good books, and he doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or cry.

He does neither, following Cas stoically. Then he sees that there’s only one bed and sighs. “Of course,” he grumbles. “Cas, you can take the bed.”

Cas sets his bag down on the ground and turns to face Dean. “No—you drove the whole way here.”

“Cas, don’t fight me on this, okay? I can sleep in the recliner. Those are pretty comfortable.”

“Very well,” Cas says after a moment’s hesitation. “Can I shower first?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Cas grabs a few things from his bag and heads into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Dean pulls out his laptop to check his email for any information from Benny or Garth, because quarterly reports are due in maybe a month, and Adler wants projections of the profit they might be turning in to the board of directors for best-case and worst-case scenarios, and then a few “in-between” scenarios.

It’s just busy work, in Dean’s opinion, because the projections don’t actually _do_ anything, but Adler’s the one calling the shots, so it’s not as though Dean can just choose to defy his orders.

Maybe about ten minutes later, Cas emerges from the bathroom in a faded blue t-shirt and loose pajama bottoms. He passes by the table where Dean is set up with his laptop, and the clean, fresh scent that he carries with him is almost too much. Dean can’t even remember the last time he smelled his mate right after a shower, but it’s pure _Cas_ , layered with a hint of lavender that could be from soap or shampoo—Dean doesn’t care as long as he can keep inhaling it, one long pull after another.

“Dean?” Cas says, and Dean blinks a few times, looks over to see that his roommate looks concerned.

“Yeah. Sorry, zoned out just then,” Dean says.

“Yes, I noticed,” Cas says with a frown. “I was telling you that you can shower now.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks,” Dean says, head still a little fuzzy with Cas’s scent. He gets up and grabs a clean pair of briefs and some old sweats from his bag before retreating to the bathroom.

Once inside, he’s surrounded by the aroma, and he was maybe at a low level of arousal before he came into the bathroom, but now that he’s alone in here, door closed behind him, he finds himself hardening almost embarrassingly fast.

Dean strips out of his clothes, dropping each item on the ground until he’s fully unclothed. He grips his cock and massages the base, where his knot has already swollen up a little, and has to stifle a groan because god, Cas does not need to know what he’s doing in here. He stumbles into the shower and fumbles for the taps—the water should be loud enough to cover up any sounds he’s about to make.

The water warms up quickly, and Dean steps under the spray, closing his eyes. Fuck, the smell is strong enough that it feels like Cas is in here with him, and Dean starts to slowly stroke himself, because there’s no goddamn way he’s gonna make it through this shower without jerking off—it’s just not an option.

Behind his eyelids, he sees the cold, blue fire of Cas’s eyes, blazing with anger on Dean’s behalf the way they’d been downstairs in the lobby. Dean groans and gradually speeds up the motion of his hand, adding a twist at the end of each upstroke. The image shifts to one of Cas dropping to his knees, face upturned, eyes darkening rapidly with arousal, and god, he’s gonna let Dean come all over his face—yeah, fuck, _yes_ , he’d look so perfect covered in come.

Dean takes another deep breath, filling his lungs with the sweet scent of his omega, and throws his left hand out to brace his weight against the wall because his legs are starting to tremble. His knot swells up some more, and shit, he doesn’t think he’s gotten his knot off by himself since he just hit puberty, but that definitely seems to be where he’s headed right now.

He stops with his hand around the base of his dick, right below the swell of his knot, and tightens his grip, and the pressure is not quite right but good, just good enough—

“Oh Jesus, fuck— _Cas_ —” he chokes out, and then he’s coming in hot spurts, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through him and stealing his breath.

Dean sinks to his knees and sits back on his heels, too blissed out to bother with staying on his feet. He keeps up the pressure just below his knot, but it isn’t the same, isn’t right, isn’t _Cas_ , and even as he goes through the aftershocks of pleasure, another load of come pouring out of him, he starts to feel bereft.

God, he thinks as he comes down, he can’t even jerk off in peace anymore.

He lets go of his thoughts, and a minute or two later, he gets back to his feet and finishes his shower in water that’s just beginning to turn cold. As he’s toweling himself off, it occurs to him that the entire bathroom still stinks of Dean’s arousal, and if Cas comes in here, there’s no way he won’t be able to tell what Dean was doing.

But when he gets back out into the hotel room, dressed in his old sweats and almost done toweling off his hair, he realizes that his concern was unnecessary—Cas is asleep, curled up on the recliner with the tan trench coat that he likes so much draped over himself as a blanket.

Dean sighs. “Stubborn little bastard,” he mutters to himself, tossing the old clothes into his bag and dropping the towel on top. Then he goes over to the bed and pulls back the covers and sheets before crossing the room and studying Cas for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to get him over to the bed. He settles on a princess carry, since Cas is already kinda curled up in that shape.

Carefully, Dean slides one arm behind Cas’s back, slipping his hand between Cas’s side and the back of the recliner, and loops the other under his knees. Dean gingerly lifts him from the chair, surprised at how light he is because Cas’s clothing is typically too big for him, masking his actual size—it’s a tactic that many omegas employ in order to appear bigger and stronger, more impervious to attack. Cas doesn’t stir, even when Dean sets him down on the bed and pulls the covers over him.

Sure that Cas is still asleep, Dean grabs the trench coat from where it’d slid onto the ground and moves toward the closet to hang it up, but it’s already in his hands, and Dean’s never been good at resisting temptation. So he brings the cloth up to his nose and inhales, and yeah, this is what he’d expected it to smell like—apples and cinnamon and a hint of lavender and… and honey?

Dean stills, glances back at the bed for a moment, and sniffs again. It’s definitely honey, sticky-sweet, and fuck, Dean must’ve been too out of it to notice it earlier, the scent too subtle to be noticed under the other layers, but this means that Cas was— _is?_ —wet. Unless his scent has changed, his slick would add this hint of honey, and shit, now Dean’s wondering what Cas was dreaming about.

He moves over to the recliner and sits down, bringing the coat with him because well, it’s out already, so why not use it as a blanket? It’d be easier than going through his own bag to find a jacket. Sure, it’s a flimsy excuse, and Dean might regret his decision in the morning, but right now he just doesn’t care.

He leans back and pops the footrest up, tugging the coat up to cover his bare torso, and Cas’s scent comes with it, soothing and familiar.

Dean falls asleep within minutes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay; I do try my best to update once a week. I spent two days watching an old Chinese drama (oh god, things from 2003 are old what is happening to the world), and then writer's block, so. Yeah, sorry.

Dean wakes and sits up straight, rubbing his eyes and then stretching his arms out to either side of him. He feels relaxed and refreshed, which… what?

Frowning, Dean notes that Cas isn’t in bed anymore and that the sink’s running—the sound was probably what woke him. He gets up, placing Cas’s coat on the bed when he passes by it, and checks the clock on the nightstand.

Nine o’clock.

No wonder he feels so well-rested. Dean got more than eight—almost nine!—hours of continuous sleep last night. It’s the first time he’s slept so well in the past six years, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out why. Dean looks back at the vacant bed and wishes for what must be the millionth time that he still had Cas, that they were still together.

Then his phone rings, and he crosses the room to rummage through the pockets of his jacket from yesterday. If it’s Adler or Crowley, Dean’s not picking up—it’s friggin’ Saturday, and he’s got a _funeral_ to attend. But the phone identifies the caller as Sam, so Dean swipes his finger across the screen.

“Heya, Sammy,” he says just as Cas comes out of the bathroom to check on him. “Everything’s fine,” he mouths to Cas, who lingers in the doorway, eyes still on Dean.

Sam sighs. “Yeah hey, Dean. I talked to Christian last night when I got here, and—”

“Shit,” Dean blurts out reflexively, because he’d almost forgotten what Cas said last night.

“Are you and Cas really back together?” Sam asks.

Dean looks over at Cas, whose brows are furrowed in concern. “No,” he says, deciding on the truth because he’s almost positive Sam would be able to figure out the lie anyway, eventually.

“Okay, then why does Christian think that you are?”

“Because Cas said so. He was—”

Cas takes the phone then, and Dean makes a grab for it, but Cas is already talking—“Hello, Sam.”

“Cas, give me back the phone,” Dean says.

“I’ve been well, thank you. And yourself?” Cas says, edging away and waving his free hand at Dean in a shooing motion.

Dean thrusts his hands up in the air and stalks into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he comes back out a few minutes later, Cas is sitting cross-legged on the bed, still on the phone.

“I’m glad you understand,” Cas is saying. “Dean’s reaction was rather different from yours.”

Whatever Sam says on the other end has Cas bursting into laughter, and Dean savors the moment because Cas doesn’t laugh like this very often. Come to think of it, he looks a hell of a lot more radiant than usual, and his scent—he’s _happy_. If sunlight had a smell, the smell of Cas right now would be it.

And then Dean wonders if Cas is constantly tired, if he also has trouble sleeping, more trouble than he’s let on. It would explain why he looks and smells more _alive_ than usual today.

Maybe Cas needs Dean back in his bed as much as Dean needs him.

Then Cas slides off the bed and goes over to Dean, holding the phone out. “Sam would like to speak with you,” he says.

“Well, yeah. That’s why he called me, asshole,” Dean says. Cas just smiles, unapologetic, and Dean lifts the phone to his ear. “Yeah.”

“Cas told me what happened,” Sam says. “I didn’t know Christian was such a jerk.”

“Neither did I,” Dean says. After a pause, he says, “What should I tell Mom and Dad? I’ll bet Christian’s gotten to them by now.”

“The truth, I guess,” Sam answers. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to give Mom false hope like that.”

Dean sighs. “If Christian’s talked to her, she’s already got false hope.”

“What does Cas think?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says, looking at Cas. “What do you think?” he asks.

Cas points to himself inquiringly, and when Dean nods, he replies neutrally, “It’s up to you—they’re your parents, after all.”

“Yeah, but you’re in a relationship, so…”

“That I am,” Cas says, but he doesn’t say anything else, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“So don’t you think you should have a say in this? I mean, if my mom and dad think we’re back together, you’re gonna have to come home with me whenever I—”

“You say that as though you actually come home,” Sam interrupts.

“Oh, shut up,” Dean says to Sam, ignoring Cas’s confused head-tilt.

“What? It’s true, isn’t it? When was the last time you went home, Dean? Two years ago? Three?”

“Sam, we’re not talking about this.”

“You can’t run forever, Dean. What are you even running from, anyway? Cas is out there with you, isn’t he? If anything, you should be running home to get away from him. So what exactly are you doing?”

“I’ll see you downstairs,” Dean says, and hangs up the phone on Sam’s protests.

“Is everything all right?” Cas asks.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Dean says shortly.

They get dressed in silence, Cas seemingly having sensed that Dean doesn’t want to talk about it. Dean does his best to focus on the tasks at hand—buttons, tie, jacket—so that he doesn’t have to think about what he’s gonna tell his parents, or how he and Cas are gonna act around each other if they’re gonna keep up the impression that they’re back together. God, this is gonna be such a shitfest.

“You ready to go?” Dean says when he’s finished, turning toward Cas.

“Yes,” Cas answers, but Dean shakes his head and steps over to him.

“How the hell do you manage to get dressed day to day?” he comments, reaching out to straighten Cas’s collar so that it folds over properly. At least he managed to tie his tie correctly on his own.

“Luck, maybe,” Cas responds readily, and damn it, Dean wants more than anything to fist his hands in Cas’s hair and drag him in for a kiss, wants to wreck this put-together version of Cas.

He clears his throat and pulls his hands back. “All right, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Cas says, hand lightly touching down on Dean’s arm to keep him in place. “We should discuss our course of action.”

“Yeah,” Dean says reluctantly. “I don’t uh, I don’t want to tell them that you’re a liar. I haven’t met most of these people before, but from what my mom’s said about them over the years, they’re a group of really judgmental assholes, so you’d look bad to them because you were lying, and I’d look pathetic because you had to stand up for me by lying.”

“The Campbells discriminate against omegas, I take it.”

“Only if they step ‘out of place,’” Dean says, putting up air quotes as we speaks. “So basically, yeah.”

Cas nods. “That’s good to know, I suppose.” After a pause, he asks, “Have you decided what you’ll tell your parents?”

“The truth,” Dean says. “I think they’ll understand and play along. They’ve both had issues with Mom’s side of the family, so I’ll bet they won’t think too much of it.”

Cas looks relieved, and it kinda stings, even though it makes no sense for Dean to be disappointed that Cas doesn’t want to pretend they’re back together. “I think that is the best option,” Cas says. “Will you tell them right away, or—”

“I’ll try to get them alone at some point today,” Dean answers. “We’ll put on a show the rest of the time.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“Okay, great. Now we really should get moving, or we’re gonna be late for brunch.”

* * *

When they get down to the lobby, Sam is there with a brunette whom Dean can only assume is Sarah, Sam’s girlfriend of almost a year.

“Hey there, Sammy,” Dean says as he approaches, pulling his brother into a quick hug as soon as he’s within reach. After letting go of Sam, he extends a hand to the young woman and says, “And you must be Sarah.”

“The one and only,” Sarah says with a warm smile and a firm handshake.

She smells of chocolate, maybe with a dash of citrus and a hint of bitterness—dark chocolate, Dean concludes. He likes the aroma a lot, probably more than the smell of Jess, which had carried the kind of freshness that reminded Dean a little too much of salads.

Dean tunes back into the conversation as Cas and Sarah shake hands, and Sarah says, “It’s so nice to meet you both.”

“Same,” Dean says. “Sam’s been talking about you for who knows how many months, so I’ve been waiting to finally meet you.”

Sarah smiles again. “He’s been talking about me, hmm? All good things, I expect.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Dean says, and Sarah mock-gasps and smacks Sam’s arm.

“Okay, we should probably go,” Sam says. “The others left already.”

“Sure,” Dean says, leading the way out of the lobby.

“How was your flight?” he hears Cas ask behind him.

“Good,” Sarah answers. “Especially for Sam. The flight attendant who was working our section just would _not_ stop flirting with him.”

“ _At_ me,” Sam corrects, but Sarah ignores him to continue talking.

“I mean, the nerve! I swear one time we were actually holding hands, and she was still talking to him as though I wasn’t there.”

“Sam didn’t do anything to stop her advances?” Cas asks.

“Not a thing,” Sarah replies. Sam immediately makes a noise of protest, so Sarah adds, “Okay, so you asked her to stop maybe one time, but you were so nice about it that she really didn’t get the message.”

“That’s just Sammy. He’s unbearably nice to everyone,” Dean says, and Sarah laughs.

“Shut up, Dean.”

“Did you eventually get the flight attendant to stop?” Cas asks.

“As a matter of fact, I did. Finally I got fed up and just kissed him right in front of her. She got all quiet and glower-y after that, but at least she stopped trying to get into his pants,” Sarah says.

They reach the car then, and when Cas goes for the back seat, Sam grabs his arm, stopping him. They have a quiet exchange that Dean chooses to ignore, ducking into the driver’s seat without comment. Cas slides into the front seat a moment later, and Sarah and Sam get in the back.

“So what’s the deal with this diner we’re going to?” Dean asks as he pulls out of the parking space.

“Apparently it was one of Samuel’s favorite places to eat around here,” Sam says. “Mom told me she hated the food because it was all greasy, and the salads were kinda awful, but she said their breakfast foods were okay.”

“Well yeah, because breakfast foods are supposed to be greasy,” Dean says. “Bring on the bacon, man.” Then he asks, “Sarah, you’re not a vegetarian or anything, are you? Not that it’s a bad thing, if you are.”

“Oh I know, but no,” she answers. “I like meat a little too much to just give it up.”

Dean grins at this response and says, “Sammy, I take back everything I’ve ever said about your taste in women. Sarah is awesome.”

Everyone laughs at this, and a couple minutes later, Dean turns into the parking lot of the diner.

“Guys, wait a sec,” Sam says before they can get out of the car. Dean twists a little in his seat to look at Sam and observes that his brow is furrowed, lips thinned. “What’re you doing about… y’know.”

Dean’s gaze shifts to Sarah, only to find that she’s looking between him and Cas with some measure of understanding. “Don’t worry, guys. Sam didn’t tell me everything, just—just the basics,” she says.

Dean doesn’t even have to look to sense Cas tensing up beside him, and when he draws his next breath—yeah, Cas is uncomfortable right now.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking what exactly you know,” Cas says, and his tone is colder now, impersonal. Dean understands why he’d be uncomfortable with a stranger knowing something so personal, but he’s been handling their situation so well… Then again, his spur-of-the-moment decision last night was uncharacteristically rash, definitely not a sign that he’s handling any of this well.

“No, of course not,” Sarah answers. “I just know that you two mated and had a child together, but then you separated, and now you’re maybe pretending to be back together? That’s it, I promise.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Sam says. “I couldn’t—”

“It’s fine,” Cas says, returning to a friendlier demeanor. Dean has to admit that he also feels a little relieved that Sam left out the details. Cas then confides, “Dean and I have agreed that he’ll tell your parents the truth. In the meantime, he and I will… play our roles, so to speak.”

Dean nods in agreement after Cas is finished speaking, and Sam says, “If that’s what you think is best, I guess.”

“It is,” Dean says. “Now can we go inside? I’m starving.”

* * *

Dean has never been much of a churchgoer. He’s just not cut out for it. He doesn’t like sitting still for extended periods of time, listening to preachers preach about right and wrong, Heaven and Hell. This is the first funeral service he’s ever attended, and since he knew next to nothing about Samuel, it’s turning out to be pretty damn boring—just about as boring as the sermons he attended as a kid. He knows he should be paying attention, but his mind just keeps drifting away.

He still hasn’t had a chance to really talk to Mom or Dad yet because they were seated with a bunch of other relatives when Dean and his passengers entered the diner; all they managed to get in were a few quick greetings, and then Dean had gone to sit with Sam, Cas, and Sarah.

He did get a good look at them, at least. Mom… she looked a lot thinner, and not in a healthy way. Pale, too. Dean had known that she was taking Samuel’s death hard, but seeing the physical evidence of it was more painful than he’d expected. Dad, on the other hand, had looked strong and reliable, if a little sad, and it was probably more than Dean could have hoped for, seeing Dad looking so supportive.

There’s a sharp pinch on Dean’s thigh, and he jerks a little in his seat. Luckily, no one notices, and he shoots a quick glare at Cas—they’re not exactly up front, seated two rows behind Samuel’s close friends and family, but there are still seats behind them, so Dean can’t glare at Cas until he notices.

Facing the front, Cas lightly nudges Dean’s shoulder and holds up his phone, signaling that Dean should get out his own phone. When he does, he sees that there’s a text from Cas.

_Stop thinking so hard. You’re giving me a headache._

Dean almost asks how Cas could possibly know that Dean was thinking, but that would be a stupid question. Dean knows Cas’s scent, every variation of it—it makes sense that Cas would be just as familiar with Dean’s, to the extent that he’s able to tell when Dean’s mind is particularly restless.

The screen on his phone lights up with a second message— _Stop, or I’ll resort to drastic measures_.

Dean glances at Cas, eyebrows raised, but Cas is still facing forward, looking completely attentive to the preacher’s speech even though Dean knows otherwise. Drastic measures, hmm? There’s only so much Cas can do—they’re in the middle of a _funeral_ , for Christ’s sake.

Then Cas slips his arm around Dean’s and shifts closer, leaning his head on Dean’s shoulder, and fuck, sitting next to Cas was bad enough, but at least Dean was accustomed enough to handle it. Now, Cas’s hair is practically right under his nose, and unless he intends to hold his breath for the rest of the service, he has to breathe in Cas’s scent.

It’s soothing, calming, lending Dean patience where moments before he’d felt a moderate level of agitation, and okay, he has to admit that this is effective for quieting his thoughts. He inhales, slow and deep, savoring what he’s been allowed, and leans into Cas a little bit because well, because he can’t _not_.

Cas stiffens a little when Dean turns into his touch, but he doesn’t pull away, and Dean’s grateful. He still doesn’t really hear a word the preacher is saying, but suddenly he wants the service to last forever.

* * *

Unfortunately for Dean, the preacher wraps up relatively quickly, and the first two rows get up to lay flowers on the casket and pay their last respects. Then the casket is lowered into the ground, and the guests start a solemn procession across the street to the building where the reception will be held.

Once inside, Deanna—Dean’s grandmother—says a few quick words about Samuel, and then refreshments are served.

“It was a nice service,” Sarah comments.

“Oh, come on,” Dean says quietly. “It was boring as hell.”

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam says reprovingly. “Save it for later, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, and then someone taps on his shoulder from behind, and he turns to see—“Mom.” Dean leans down slightly to hug her.

“Hey, baby,” Mom says, and Dean cringes as he pulls back, but he doesn’t voice his protest.

“Hey, Dad,” he adds as Mom goes to hug Sam. Dean holds out a hand for Dad to shake and is startled to get pulled into a hug.

“It’s been a long time, son.”

Dad gets a turn with Sam, and then they’re standing in a small square, looking back and forth between one another because they have the time now, and it really _has_ been too long.

Then Dad steps back and says, “Sam, you haven’t officially introduced us to your friend here. Didn’t we teach you any manners?”

“Oh, right! Right. Uh, this is Sarah Blake. Sarah, my parents.”

Sarah smiles. “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester,” she says, shaking their hands in turn. “I only wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

“Nonsense. Nothing brings people together like a tragedy,” Mom says.

There’s a brief, awkward pause, and Dean has no clue what to say about Cas, or what his parents might have heard, and shit, it’d been so easy to think he’d just wing it, but actually trying to come up with the right thing to say is really fucking hard.

Cas breaks the silence before Dean can. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester,” he says, and Mom shakes her head, smiling warmly.

“Mary, please,” she says, and Dean’s surprised to hear the same fondness in her voice that was always there when she spoke to Cas, even before he and Dean were together. She pulls Cas into a hug that he clearly did not expect to receive, if the way he goes stiff as a board is any indication.

“How is our granddaughter?” Dad asks.

“She’s quite well,” Cas reports. “I’ve offered to let Dean bring her home to Lawrence to meet you, but he hasn’t been back in some time, I understand.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Mom confirms, frowning at Dean, “and he’s going to fix that soon, isn’t he?”

“Gee, thanks, Cas,” Dean says jokingly.

“We really should have a proper family dinner this year, before Adam runs off to medical school,” Dad says. “Sam, you’ll be able to fly back for Christmas at least, right?”

Sam glances at Sarah before answering, “Yeah. And—”

“Sarah, you’re more than welcome to come too, of course,” Mom interrupts. “But only if you’re able. If you already have plans with your family—”

“Oh no, I’d love to come,” Sarah says.

She keeps talking, but Cas taps Dean’s arm and tells him in an undertone that he just has to use the restroom and will be right back, so Dean misses whatever else Sarah says. There’s a lull in conversation then, and Dean decides to take advantage of it.

“Could I talk to Mom and Dad alone for a sec?” he asks, because there really isn’t a delicate way to ask that question, and Dean’s never been one to treat things delicately, anyway.

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says. “We’ll go grab something to eat.”

Sam and Sarah head toward the long tables at the side of the room, and Dean herds Mom and Dad toward the opposite side, closer to the entrance, where there are less people—a ton more people showed up for the reception because apparently Samuel helped a lot of them out in his time as chief of police here.

“We know you’re not really together,” Mom says before Dean can even open his mouth, and he just looks at her, surprised.

“We don’t know that, Mary,” Dad argues. “Didn’t you smell them all over each other?”

“John,” Mom starts, exasperated.

“Okay, stop,” Dean says, trying to head them off before they draw too much attention to the conversation. “Mom’s right. But how did you—”

“You called me last week, dummy. If it were true, you would have said something then,” Mom says, and right, how could he have forgotten?

“Well, you had me halfway convinced,” Dad says. “Why’d you lie?”

“It was Cas,” Dean says, looking around just to make sure that none of his cousins are around—since this morning, he’s also met Mark and Johnny Campbell, both of whom are older than Dean and share Christian’s oh-so-sunny disposition. Seeing none of them nearby, Dean continues, “Christian said a few things, and Cas kinda got pissed off.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first,” Dad says. “I don’t blame him. If Christian’s tongue is anything like his grandfather’s…” Dad lets his voice trail off, hand gently wrapping around Mom’s wrist.

“I’m fine,” Mom says.

“Anyhow, if you and Cas mean to convince, why isn’t he with you right now?” Dad asks, and yeah, he’s got a point.

“He went to the bathroom,” Dean says. “I’ll go check on him, make sure everything’s fine.”

He barely registers his parents’ responses before turning away, because fuck, even if Dean’s scent is on Cas, he’s still an omega, and there are a hell of a lot more people here than Dean expected, many of whom have no idea that Cas is “mated.” Dean remembers that man from the benefit—Armstrong—trying to get at Cas even though Cas had said he was taken, and Armstrong was supposed to be an educated— _civilized_ —professional.

But Cas’s scent isn’t anywhere near the bathrooms, and when Dean goes inside just to make sure, he can’t smell Cas there. Frowning, and maybe a little more frantic than before, Dean goes back to the place where Mom and Dad had caught up with them originally. He catches a hint of Cas’s scent still here—

“Dean,” a familiar voice says, but it’s irrelevant, unimportant because it’s not Cas—“ _Dean_.”

“Gwen, hey,” Dean says, mind clearing, but only a bit. “Have you seen Cas? I’m looking for him.”

“Uh, yeah. I think he went out back with your brother,” Gwen answers.

“Sam?” Dean wonders aloud.

“Well yeah. You got any other brothers?” Gwen says, lifting one eyebrow.

“Technically yes, but…” Dean doesn’t bother finishing the thought, heading for the back exit because it’s more important. Cas shouldn’t be in any danger if he’s with Sam, but why the hell would he be with Sam in the first place?

After passing through the back door, Dean finds himself in a short hallway with two doors on either side and a third at the far end that is marked as the exit. Cas’s scent is here, faint but unmistakable, and Dean starts toward the exit, but he stops as he’s passing the door on his right because he hears voices.

“No, I’m _not_ trying to tell you how to feel.”

That’s Sam’s voice, so Cas must be in there, too.

“You aren’t? It certainly sounds like you are,” and yeah, that’s definitely Cas.

“I’m just saying that—I just wanted to ask you whether or not you’re happy.”

“You may be asking, but you’ve already made up your mind that I’m not,” Cas answers.

“I haven’t—” Sam starts, sounding frustrated, but then there’s a pause, and he says, calmer, “I haven’t really seen enough to know for myself, but Gabriel said that you were unhappy.”

“And how is Gabriel to know? He hasn’t seen me in a long time, either,” Cas says. Dean’s just starting to wonder why Sam and Gabriel are even talking when Cas asks, “And why are you talking to Gabriel, anyway? He dropped out a while ago.”

“We kept in touch. Y’know, there are these useful little things called cell phones?”

It’s silent for a moment, and Dean wonders what they’re even talking about. It seems like Sam is trying to convince Cas of something. And fuck, if he waited to get Cas alone, it must have to do with Dean. Does Sam know about Cas’s position at Sandover? Is he trying to talk Cas into quitting?

“Okay, fine,” Sam says. “Maybe I can’t speak for you, but Dean… he refuses to talk about it, but I know he’s still hurting.”

“Sam—”

“Maybe the wound isn’t fresh anymore, but it obviously still hurts enough that he doesn’t even want to come home during the holidays,” Sam interrupts. “I might have been younger when you two were still together, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way you two used to look at each other, and believe it or not, it’s still there. Whenever you’re turned away, Dean looks at you like he used to, and you—I’ve seen the look on your face whenever he’s not looking, Cas.”

Dean’s heart leaps to his throat and fucking _stays_ there, and he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but just gape at the closed door. What the hell is he supposed to do with this information? Is it even true? Or possible? There’s no way Cas still feels the same—no _way_ —but damn it, Dean can’t help the bud of hope that springs into existence at Sam’s words.

“Sam,” Cas says, voice low enough that Dean has to press his ear to the wood to hear, “what do you want me to say?”

He sounds pained, and Dean wants to just barge in and fix everything, but he doesn’t know how.

“I don’t know,” Sam answers. “I just—you and Dean—this wasn’t meant to happen. I—”

“ _Meant_ to happen?” Cas repeats. “Look, I don’t—” he breaks off into a slightly hysterical laugh before starting over, “—I don’t believe in fate, in that bullshit about people who are _meant_ to be together. Dean and I were a mistake, and that’s all.”

“Cas,” Sam says, barely audible through the door, or maybe it’s just hard for Dean to hear because of the blood pounding in his ears.

Cas thinks—Cas thinks they were a mistake. Sure, there’s a slim chance that he might be lying, but why would he lie about this? After what happened to him, what Dean did, it isn’t even a surprise that he would consider their mating a mistake. Hell, Dean’s suffered more than he’s benefited from it, too.

But fuck, if they could go back and do it again, Dean would make the same call. Even knowing what would happen to them, even if he couldn’t stop any of it, Dean would still choose Cas, every time. He’s long suspected that Cas didn’t share the sentiment, but hearing the confirmation, the fact that he actually considers his time with Dean a _mistake_ , hurts more than Dean can bear.

Steeling himself, Dean decides that it’s time to put an end to this conversation, so he straightens, twists the knob, and pushes the door open. Both men turn toward the door, Sam stopping midsentence, and if Dean were in the right mood, he’d laugh at the deer-in-headlights looks on their faces.

As it is, he can hardly even look at Cas, and it’s impossible that they can’t smell his disillusionment—it must be radiating from him in goddamn waves.

“Dean,” Sam says. “I uh, I mean, we—”

“Enough, okay? I heard enough,” Dean says.

“How long were you standing out there?” Cas asks, surprisingly calm, and god, he probably wants to know whether or not Dean heard his opinion on their past relationship.

“Not long,” Dean replies. “Sam, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Sam licks his lips quickly and says, “I’m sorry. I am. To both of you. I shouldn’t have—shouldn’t have stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong, shouldn’t have… I don’t know, tried to tell you how you feel about each other.” His brows draw closer together then, and he adds, “But you two have to resolve this. I just—seeing the way you two are together—”

“That’s enough, Sam,” Cas cuts in, but his eyes are on Dean. “We appreciate the thought you and Gabriel put into this, but Dean and I are fine as we are.”

“See, you guys still—”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean says firmly. “Can we just go back to the reception now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, fine,” Sam says, coming toward the doorway. Dean backs out of the way to let him pass, and he goes right back down the hall and into the reception area.

“Dean,” Cas says cautiously, “whatever you might have heard—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Dean says, playing it off the best he can even though his scent has probably given everything away already. “It was nothing I didn’t already know.”

Cas just nods, expression neutral, and says, “Did you still want to continue the charade?”

Oh, what the hell, why not? “We might as well,” Dean says aloud. “We only have maybe an hour left to go with the Campbells, tops, and then we’ll be heading back to the hotel.”

“All right,” Cas says, coming toward Dean.

When he’s close enough, Dean takes a whiff, but he can’t get a good read on Cas’s emotions—either he isn’t feeling all that strongly about anything, or he’s so conflicted that no single emotion stands out over all the rest. The first possibility is far more likely than the second, and it’s good for Cas because it means he’s pretty much over everything that happened, but… but well, him being over it all pretty much resolves the connection between him and Dean, and fuck it all, Dean would take the pain and the guilt over fucking _nothing_.

Dean pulls open the back door and holds it open for Cas to go ahead before entering the room himself. He locates his parents with Deanna and points Cas in that direction, trying his best to just clear his mind so that he can at least _act_ sympathetic.

Damn it, he officially hates funerals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I've gotten a few questions about this, I'm just wondering: would you guys prefer to know exactly what happened between Dean and Cas in this fic, or would you be willing to wait for the prequel? I was originally planning to leave out what exactly happened (the few references we've gotten about it being Dean's fault, and maybe something about betraying Cas's trust would be all that showed up in this fic) and just reveal the whole thing to you in the prequel (that particular scene and a few others have already been written for the purposes of maintaining continuity with this fic), but yeah, I got a couple questions, so I'm willing to alter my plans a little if it suits you guys.
> 
> ( **ETA:** From your responses, I've gathered that pretty much all of you want at least a little more information in this fic, so I'll endeavor to make it a little clearer what actually happened without giving away all the details. Also I thought I'd take a moment to tell you guys that you've been fantastic readers so far, and thank you so much for your feedback. I really do appreciate it)
> 
> Also, I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I'll be flying out to China on Sept. 25 and won't be back 'til Oct. 27. I don't know if or when I'll have access to internet while I'm there, so I may not be able to update for that period of time. Just giving you guys a heads-up. Thanks for reading!:)


	7. Chapter 7

The drive home feels a hell of a lot longer than the drive up, probably because Dean spends the whole time trying not to think about Cas. Of course, the more he tries to avoid thinking about Cas, the more he ends up actually thinking about Cas, which sucks because Cas is _right there_ the whole time.

It was slightly better in the hotel room last night because Dean sat in the recliner with his laptop and worked until Cas went to sleep—in fact, Dean thinks last night may have been the only time he was grateful for all of Adler’s busywork.

Dean’s really goddamn relieved when they reach Akron. He offers to make a stop at Balthazar’s place to pick up Ariel, but Cas declines, saying that Balthazar was already going to be at the apartment tonight because Ariel wanted to be home when Cas got back.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Cas says as he gets out of the car, and Dean just nods and smiles because he’s so done with talking.

It takes less than a minute for Cas to get his bag from the back, and then he’s going into the apartment building, and Dean’s pulling away from the curb.

“Damn it,” he mutters to himself as he drives down familiar streets.

This whole weekend was a mistake, he decides when he’s back in his apartment, lounging on the couch and refilling his glass with whiskey. All he wants is to get himself blind drunk and pass out here, so of course this is the moment that his phone starts ringing. He sets the bottle and glass down on the coffee table and stares at his phone, thinking about ignoring it. He lets it ring three more times before sighing heavily and grabbing it.

“Hello?” he says.

“Dean, hey,” Charlie says. “Did you get home okay?”

“Yeah, we got back fine,” Dean answers. It’s quiet on the other end, as though Charlie’s waiting for something, and Dean says, “What?”

“Well, don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” Charlie says.

Dean frowns. “I don’t— _oh_.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Charlie says, and he can already see the annoyance on her face. “Thought you agreed to give me a call when you got home to let me know you didn’t die on the road.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

Another pause, briefer this time, and then Charlie says, “Are you okay? I mean, was your mom—”

“My mom’s fine,” Dean says. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just gonna call it a night and—”

“Dean, it’s like six o’clock.”

“Yeah well, I just drove for eight freakin’ hours. I’m tired.” When Charlie doesn’t answer immediately, Dean says, “If we’re gonna keep sitting here and not talking, I’m just gonna hang up.”

“Is it Cas?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well something’s obviously bothering you. Is it Cas?” Charlie clarifies.

There’s no way Dean’s drunk just after that one glass, so he really has no excuse for answering with, “When _isn’t_ it Cas?”

“Do you need me to come over?”

“No,” Dean says immediately. God, no. “I’m fine, Charlie. I’ve been dealing with this just fine on my own.”

“I’m coming over.”

“No— _Charlie_ —”

But there’s only a dial tone now, which means she’s hung up already. Goddamn it. Dean rubs his face with his free hand and tosses his phone back onto the coffee table with the other. He doesn’t have to let Charlie into his apartment—doesn’t even have to let her into the building—but he’s not that much of an asshole, and god help him, he probably could use someone to unload on. So he finishes pouring himself that second glass and goes to lean against the wall next to his front door.

Twenty minutes later, the buzzer sounds, and Dean doesn’t even wait for Charlie to say something before buzzing her in and unlocking the door. He deposits his glass in the sink to be washed later and crosses the apartment to his couch to wait for Charlie to come up.

The front door opens a few minutes after that, but Dean’s surprised to hear more than one pair of footsteps, so he turns in time to see Benny coming in, followed by Garth, who shuts the door.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” he asks.

“Well, I was gonna tell them anyway, so I figured they might as well come with and hear it directly from the source,” Charlie says.

Dean sighs, too tired to protest it. “Fine. But if you’re staying, Garth, Mr. Fizzles has to go.”

“I didn’t even bring him,” Garth says, holding up both hands to show Dean that they’re empty.

“Yeah, all right,” Dean says, leaning back against the couch again, and the others take that as a cue to join him. Benny and Garth sit on either side of him, and Charlie takes up her usual perch when the four of them are gathered here to talk—she sits cross-legged on the coffee table.

“You need to kick the drinking habit,” Charlie says, eyeing the bottle next to her with distaste. “I mean, it’s okay when we go to bars and stuff, but you don’t have to have shelves of the stuff at home.”

“Hey, I don’t have _shelves_ ,” Dean says. “Maybe I have _a_ shelf.”

“No, let’s not get distracted,” Garth says. “Get us all up to speed, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t even know what to say. There’s nothing to tell.”

“You can start with how the funeral went,” Garth supplies, “or how it was to see your family again. Oh—how’s Sam?”

“Sam’s fine,” Dean says. That freakin’ idiot is only trying to convince Cas to break up with Balthazar and get back with Dean, which—okay, that might be what Dean wants too, but Sam didn’t need to go out and actually _talk to Cas_ about it—

“But…” Charlie says, interrupting Dean’s thoughts.

“But what?” he asks.

“Sam’s fine, but…?”

“But nothing,” Dean says. “Sam’s fine, his girlfriend’s fine, the parents are fine.”

“Right, so you’re the only one who’s not fine,” Charlie says. Before Dean can protest, she continues, “Just talk to us, Dean. We’re here to help.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need help.”

“Okay, I didn’t even need Mr. Fizzles to tell me that that was a lie,” Garth says.

“There’s nothing you three can do to help,” Dean tries instead.

“You do realize that you won’t be rid of us until you talk, don’t you?” Charlie says.

“Nothing happened,” Dean says.

“Let’s just stick with the facts,” Benny says. “I don’t want to hear what you feel about anything, just what happened.”

Dean will probably never say it, but at times like this, he’s really fucking grateful to have Benny. “The drive up was boring. We got to the hotel kinda late, checked into our room, and went—”

“Wait, room. As in room, singular?” Charlie says.

“Yeah. Gwen uh, probably made reservations beforehand and just assumed that Cas and I would stay in the same room because we were mates,” Dean says.

“Why didn’t you clear that up with her?” Garth asks.

“I did,” Dean says. “When she came to tell me the news, I set her straight. Just… when we got to the hotel, we ran into one of my other cousins, and he said some things.”

“Oh god, you didn’t do anything stupid, did you?” Charlie says.

“Of course not!” Dean says indignantly.

“I don’t know, man, you’ve done stupid things out of anger before,” Charlie says.

“Yeah well, this time it wasn’t me. Cas uh, he might have said that we were back together.”

“He didn’t,” Garth says, sounding surprised.

“He did,” Dean says. “I made sure Sam and my parents knew it wasn’t for real, but Cas and I spent most of the next day pretending it was true.”

“That sounds rough,” Charlie comments.

“Yeah, that was it,” Dean says. “I’m just tired. The drive back didn’t help, either.”

Charlie rolls her eyes. ”Oh, come on. Are you seriously trying to use being tired as an excuse right now?”

“I _am_ tired,” Dean answers. “Can we just leave it at that?”

“I keep saying that you shouldn’t keep your emotions all bottled up,” Garth says. “It’s no wonder you’re tired. Getting it all off your chest should make you feel better.”

“If Dean says that that was everything, then it was everything, and we’re done here,” Benny says.

It looks like Charlie is getting ready to argue, but when she looks at Dean’s face, her expression changes, goes from open stubbornness to quiet resolve. “Fine,” she says.

“But when you’re ready to talk, we’re here,” Garth offers.

And yeah, Dean knows that. Of course he knows—these three have been good friends to him since they met. But there are some things that he just can’t talk about. How can he tell them just how much he wants to get back together with Cas? They wouldn’t judge him, but they wouldn’t have anything helpful to say either. It’d all be along the lines of _you can’t_ or _you shouldn’t_ or worst of all, _you should move on_ , and goddamn it, Dean _knows_ he should move on, but he can’t.

“Look, I’m gonna be fine. You guys don’t have to stay here and babysit me,” Dean says. “Go home and get some sleep.”

“What, and let you drink yourself into oblivion?” Benny says. “I don’t think so.”

Dean’s about to protest, but Charlie leaps to her feet and goes over to the nearest shelf, saying, “So what are you feeling tonight? Shall we boldly go where no man has gone before? Or are you in the mood for something a little more Middle Earth?”

“I don’t care,” Dean says. “Whatever you guys wanna watch, I guess.”

Charlie ends up choosing an episode of _The Original Series_ at random. Dean knocks out before they’re even twenty minutes in.

* * *

Dean hands the folder over to Cas and says, “Just proofread for grammatical errors. Don’t bother with any fact checking—it’s just a preliminary projection. I’ll be finalizing the data after Adler gets this copy.”

It’s Wednesday, and technically Adler wanted this yesterday, but there was an accident at one of the building sites on Monday evening just after work, and Dean had spent all Tuesday in a couple different meetings about company liability, potential adjustments to employee health benefits, and whether or not they could afford the bad press. Dean had half-hoped that Adler would do away with the quarterly projections entirely, but he’d only given Dean a twenty-four hour extension on the damn thing.

“Will that be all?” Cas says.

“Yeah,” Dean says, turning back to his computer screen.

He hears Cas’s footsteps heading away from him, but when the footsteps stop and are not followed by the sound of the door closing, he glances over to see that Cas is standing in the doorway, not facing him.

“Uh, Cas,” Dean pauses to clear his throat, “you okay?”

Cas turns around and steps fully into Dean’s office again, pushing the door closed behind him. “That is exactly the question I’d like to ask you, actually.”

Dean frowns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you seriously going to make me spell it out?” Cas says.

“I really don’t—”

Cas sighs, radiating resignation, and says, “It simply cannot have escaped your notice that things have been awkward in this office ever since we returned from New York.”

“Cas—”

“Please let me finish. I know that you—that you may have heard some things on Saturday, and I’d like to apologize. It wasn’t—had I known you were listening, I would have been more considerate.”

And shit, that only makes it worse, because it means Cas is being nice and friendly for _Dean’s_ sake. “Okay. It’s fine,” Dean says. “You really didn’t have to—”

“No,” Cas interrupts, exasperated. “No, you’re still—still—”

“Still what?”

“I don’t know. Awkward. Distant. I don’t like it.”

“Okay…?” Dean says, frowning. “But isn’t that what you want?”

“What? When did I say that that was what I wanted?”

“I just—I assumed,” Dean says. “Y’know, given that everything was uh, was ‘a mistake,’ as you put it.”

Cas sighs. “Dean, I should never have said that. I apologize.”

“No, hey, I uh, it was what I’d guessed, anyway,” Dean says with a quick, forced smile. Cas must be able to see right through it, but it’s practically reflex at this point. “I figured it’d be easier if I—if we were a little more professional toward each other.”

At this, Dean swears he smells the slightest hint of bitterness, of _hurt_ , but it’s difficult to detect and mixes too quickly with the other scents in the room—it’s easier to just tell himself that it was a false alarm, that he didn’t smell anything.

“I thought we were friends, at least,” Cas says quietly, and his features have a hard edge to them that Dean wishes he could wipe away.

Dean smiles, hopefully not unkindly, and answers, “Cas, I—it’s—” he stops there, rubs a hand down his face, and starts over, more honest than he’s been in a while, “I’m trying, Cas, I am. But it’s—it’s hard, y’know?”

“I do,” Cas says, softening. “I just wanted to know whether or not we’re okay.”

They’re not okay. Of course they’re not okay.

Under all the pain, all the guilt, Dean still feels just as strongly for Cas as he used to. He went through the stages of denial and doubt and came out on the other end knowing that he’ll always feel the same way about Cas, no matter what. But Cas thinks they were a mistake, and that… that pretty much kills any chance of going back, doesn’t it?

“Yeah. We’re fine,” Dean says.

He thinks he catches a flicker of disappointment, and then Cas answers, “If you say so.”

Dean watches Cas start to turn away, and he knows he should just let him go, but damn it, his mouth is already opening, and before he can stop himself, he’s saying, “I disagree, y’know.”

“Pardon?” Cas says, attention returning to Dean.

“Nothing. Never mind,” Dean says, wishing he could rewind the clock like ten seconds and just clamp his goddamn mouth shut.

“No, you said that you disagreed,” Cas says. “What do you disagree with?”

Well, Cas was honest, so Dean might as well do the same, damn the consequences. “I don’t think we were a mistake,” he says. Cas doesn’t answer immediately, so Dean continues, “I know that we didn’t exactly… that it ended worse for you than me, but it… it felt _right_. I know you felt it, too.”

Cas’s eyes are only slightly wider than usual, and his scent carries a number of confusing, conflicting emotions that are hard to parse, but the one that goes above the rest is fear. And fuck, it _would_ be fear, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t expect you to do anything. I was the one who—who betrayed your trust,” Dean says quickly. “I just thought you should know what I… what I think. You can go.”

Cas gives Dean a tight-lipped smile before hurrying out of the room, and as soon as the door swings closed behind him, Dean lets his head drop onto his desk with a low groan.

What the hell was he thinking, telling that to Cas? What was that supposed to accomplish? He already knew that his relationship with Cas was beyond saving, so he has no clue what possessed him to admit his—his _feelings_. As though facing Cas every day wasn’t hard enough already.

“Damn it,” Dean mutters, giving himself another minute before lifting his head to get back to work.

* * *

It’s always easier to pass the time when Ariel’s around. Weekends without her have dragged out, hour after hour of finding ways to occupy his time.

With her here, Dean is busy making food, entertaining her, and cleaning up after her because despite Cas’s tendency toward cleanliness, Ariel has turned out to be like a little tornado, leaving a mess in her wake wherever she goes.

Dean gripes about it to her, telling her she needs to learn how to clean up after herself, but he can’t help but be a little happy at the proof that she’s really his, that she’s a bratty, messy little kid like he’d been when he was her age.

The only downside to having her over, of course, is that time passes by _too_ quickly, and before he knows it, it’s Sunday afternoon, and they’re waiting for Cas to come pick her up. Dean’s at the kitchen sink, doing the dishes from lunch, and Ariel is perched at the table with one of her coloring books, coloring away furiously because she wants to finish before Cas gets here.

After that horrible conversation on Wednesday, Dean had almost wanted to call in sick. But there’d still been work to do, and if Dean didn’t show up, Cas, the annoyingly competent little worker bee that he is, probably would have tried to do it in his stead. But their interactions were… surprisingly easy. Friday was just about the same, and thinking back, Dean still doesn’t really understand what the situation is between them.

Charlie and Garth had stopped by to play a couple board games with Ariel on Saturday—unfortunately, Mr. Fizzles was very much present—and as soon as Ariel was in her room for a nap, the vultures swooped. But Dean had nothing to tell, and the things they said didn’t help one bit.

Dean has half a mind to just sit Cas down when he gets here and… and talk. But he doesn’t even know what to say. It’s been weirdly pleasant, and he doesn’t _get it_. If anything, it should be weirder for them, now that their opinions are out in the open. Shouldn’t it? Dean isn’t sure anymore.

“Daddy, why can’t I stay here during the week?” Ariel asks suddenly.

Dean looks over to see big, blue eyes peering up at him over the back of the kitchen chair that Ariel’s sitting on, and he smiles. “I don’t know. Did you want to?”

“Yes!” Ariel says without hesitation, and warmth bubbles up in Dean’s chest at her eagerness.

“Well, I’d love to have you here, but you’ll have to ask Cas first.”

Ariel pouts. “But why can’t I stay because _I_ want to stay?”

“Because Cas would miss you a lot, squirt,” Dean says, turning back to the sink to finish rinsing the dishes. He hears the legs of the chair scrape a little against the tile, followed by the thud of Ariel landing on the ground. She comes over to tug at his pant leg.

“But… don’t _you_ miss me, Daddy?”

Her voice wobbles a little, and Dean immediately looks down to see that she’s actually upset, moisture forming at the corners of her eyes. He does a shit job of drying his hands and doesn’t even bother turning off the faucet, because scooping Ariel up into his arms is more important. The way she instantly grabs at his shoulders and buries her face in his neck says something about just how distraught she is, and Dean’s chest aches.

“Hey. Hey, baby, of course I miss you when you’re not here,” he says, bouncing her a little in his hold.

“I don’t wanna go home,” Ariel miserably mumbles into Dean’s collar, and wow, this has definitely never happened before.

“Ariel, what’s wrong?”

She sniffles a little and answers, “Nothing.”

“Oh come on, Ariel, you know better than to lie to Daddy,” Dean says. Ariel only shakes her head this time, and Dean’s about to question her further when the buzzer rings. “Let me talk to Cas real quick, and then we’re going to finish this,” he says as he walks them over to the front door. He hits the button for the intercom with his elbow and says, “Hey, Cas, I—”

“Sorry, it’s me today,” Balthazar says. “Can you let me in? I have some books of Ariel’s that Cas wants to store at your place.”

“Oh. Uh, sure. Ariel and I are kinda in the middle of something, so—”

“Of course. I’m holding the crate right now, though, so I’d like to be able to put it down at least. I could wait outside your apartment for you to finish, after leaving the books,” Balthazar suggests.

“Okay, then,” Dean says, pressing the button to unlock the building doors.

Ariel seems to have calmed down considerably during the brief conversation, and before Dean can even say anything, she says, “It’s okay. I don’t need to talk.”

“Is it Cas?” Dean asks.

“No. Put me down,” Ariel says petulantly, so Dean sets her down on the ground.

“Okay, is it Uncle Balthazar?”

“No,” Ariel says.

But those are pretty much Dean’s only two options, so he knows that Ariel’s gotta be lying. But she’s more stubborn than Dean is and ridiculously patient too—got those traits from Cas—so he knows that he won’t get anything out of her today. Maybe he’ll ask Cas to let him talk to her over the phone sometime during the coming week…

“Okay,” Dean says, surrendering for the time being. “Here, let me grab your bag.”

He gets Ariel’s bag from its spot by the kitchen table and comes back to the front door, opening it to wait for Balthazar to come up. As they wait, Ariel steps over and hugs his leg, something she hasn’t done in a while. Dean waits for her to speak, but she says nothing, and he wonders when five-year-olds ever got to be so serious. Ariel really is too mature for her age—definitely another Cas trait.

“Hello,” Balthazar says as he comes into sight.

Dean is prepared to respond, but his mind instantly freezes because Ariel greets Balthazar— _Balthazar_ —with, “Hi, Daddy.”

“Ariel,” Balthazar says, smiling down at her, and Dean automatically takes the crate of books from Balthazar’s arms to free them up for Ariel. “Are you all right, Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers reflexively, even though his mind is still stuck on Ariel and Balthazar and _Daddy_ —why the fuck would Ariel be referring to Balthazar as her _dad?_ Dean and Cas are her fathers. Balthazar has nothing to do with being her dad. He doesn’t have the goddamn _right_.

“You sure?” Balthazar asks, one eyebrow raised skeptically, and Dean’s so tempted to toss the crate of books and snatch Ariel out of his arms, because she is _Dean’s_ daughter, not Balthazar’s. That piece of shit might have Cas, but he can’t take Ariel from Dean. He fucking _can’t_.

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Dean says, mentally shaking himself. He’ll have all evening to stew over this anyway; might as well see Ariel off properly. “Are these all of them?” he asks, adjusting his hold on the box so that his hands are angled a little more naturally.

“Yes,” Balthazar replies, putting Ariel down and stepping past Dean to pick up her bag for her.

“Okay. I’ll see you later, then,” Dean says as Balthazar backs into the hallway. He manages a smile for Ariel, hoping to god that it doesn’t come across as fake as it feels. “Bye, kiddo.”

“Bye, Daddy,” Ariel says, and allows herself to be led away by Balthazar.

When Dean puts the box of books down and goes to the doorway, Ariel is looking back over her shoulder at him, and fuck, did Balthazar officially move into Cas’s apartment or something in the two weeks since Dean last saw Ariel? It doesn’t make sense, since Balthazar’s the one living in a gigantic house, and Cas still has a small two-bedroom apartment in the not-so-well-off side of town. But what else would bother Ariel enough that she wouldn’t want to go home?

Balthazar and Ariel reach the elevator, and Dean smiles and waves at Ariel before going back into his apartment and closing the door.

He’s itching to call Cas right now, to ask him what the hell is going on at home that has Ariel so reluctant to go back. If it has anything to do with Balthazar, Dean doesn’t even know what he’s gonna do. It’s not as though he has the right to break them up. Maybe he could ask to have Ariel for a full week instead of just a weekend. It’d take a little bit of adjusting, but he’s more than willing to do it for her sake.

Either way, Dean has to talk to Cas because it is two hundred percent not acceptable for Ariel to be calling Balthazar _Daddy_. But it’s a conversation that’ll be easier to have face to face, so that there’s no chance of Cas hanging up on him, or of being overheard by Balthazar or Ariel. He’ll be seeing Cas tomorrow morning, anyway.

Decision made, Dean grabs the crate and takes it over to the coffee table to sort the books out. Hopefully, it’ll keep his mind off—well, off _everything_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: I'm heading off to China on the 25th and won't be back til Oct. 27, so this might be the last update for a little while, depending on my internet access.
> 
> Thanks for reading, guys!

 

Dean walks into the office on Monday fully prepared to talk to Cas, so of course this would be the one morning that the guy isn’t here early. As he passes by Cas’s desk, Dean pauses and grabs a notepad to leave a message for Cas to come as soon as he gets in. Dean’s in kind of a shitty mood, running on even less sleep than usual because he couldn’t stop thinking about Cas and Balthazar and Ariel last night.

After slapping the note down on Cas’s desk, Dean shoulders his way into his own office and sets his briefcase down before collapsing into his chair.

He waits for five minutes, restless as all hell, before finally turning on his computer. But damn it, he can’t focus, mind still stuck on how upset Ariel had been last night, and how she’d called Balthazar “Daddy.” He knows for a fact that she’d always called him “Uncle Balthy,” so something must have happened. Dean doesn’t know whether the change was suggested by Cas or Balthazar, but there’s no way in hell he’s gonna let his daughter refer to a third man—another _alpha_ —as her dad.

Dean has no clue how long it’s been when someone— _Cas_ , it can only be Cas—knocks on the door. He practically leaps to his feet, pent-up frustration making him jumpy. He reaches the door just as Cas is pushing it open, so Dean yanks him in with a hard grip on his upper arm and shoves it closed.

“Dean, let go of me—what the _hell_ is your problem?”

“My prob—you wanna know what my problem is? My problem is that you’re letting our daughter— _our_ daughter—call him dad!”

Cas rips his arm out of Dean’s grasp, scent sharp and stringent with sudden anger, and Dean hates it, hates that that’s the strongest emotion he can get out of Cas these days.

“Like it or not, Balthazar _is_ her father, if only her stepfather, and—”

“You guys aren’t fucking _married_ , Cas. He’s not step-anything!”

Cas glares up at Dean. “If you must know, we’re getting married in a month. Ariel already knows you’re her biological father. I don’t—”

“No, Cas, stop,” Dean says, because his mind is still stuck on the word “married,” and Cas is getting way too far ahead of him. “You—you and Balthazar are… getting hitched.”

“Yes.”

The same old fury boils deep in Dean’s gut, disgust making bile rise up in Dean’s throat at the mere thought of anyone else’s filthy hands on his mate, and _fuck_ , he can’t—can’t do this.

Cas is backing away, slowly, and Dean’s sure he must be giving off alpha hormones like crazy, but it’s part of his biology, and he can’t stop. He also can’t stop himself from following Cas, following the unique scent of his mate—oh shit no, _not_ his mate, not anymore because Dean fucked up and can’t do anything to fix it, and goddamn it does that thought sting—and crowding him up against the wall.

“Dean, calm down,” Cas says, low, and despite Dean’s anger, hearing Cas’s voice soothes him.

Dean takes deep breaths, head dipping until his nose is pressed against Cas’s neck, just below his ear, and god, he’s missed this, missed being close enough to pull in lungful after lungful of Cas’s scent, right from the source.

But Cas’s hands are pressed against his chest, keeping a bit of space between their bodies, and fuck it all, Dean wants to shove those hands out of the way and tug Cas right up against him, mold their bodies together and see if they fit together just as well as they always did. Fuck, he knows it would feel good, knows it would be friggin’ _perfect_.

“Dean,” Cas says, a warning tone in his voice as though he can hear Dean’s thoughts, “stop.”

“He’s not—” Dean bites back a growl, says, “He’s not your mate, Cas. He can’t—you can’t do this.”

“I can, and I will. He makes me happy, Dean.”

But Dean has caught a shift in Cas’s scent, the slightest hint of arousal, Cas responding to Dean’s nearness, and Dean knows he shouldn’t be pushing that, knows he shouldn’t be taking advantage of their bond, but he can’t stand the thought of Cas and Balthazar actually making their relationship legal, permanent, just like he can’t take the thought of Ariel calling Balthazar “Daddy.”

So Dean lifts his hands and presses them over Cas’s, ignoring the way Cas’s hands stiffen at his touch. He tilts his head just a little, enough to lick a stripe along Cas’s neck, and there’s a definite spike in the sweetness in the air, the familiar smell of Cas’s slick—honey and rich vanilla—hitting Dean’s nose and mixing with his base scents of apple and cinnamon, and _fuck_ , it’s been too long.

“Dean,” Cas says, hands balling into fists, “stop this. I… I don’t…”

But Dean’s missed this scent too much, lived without it for too long, and he’s not about to let it go again, not when it’s so close. He fastens his mouth over Cas’s pulse point and sucks, hard, and Cas groans.

“Please—Dean, please don’t,” Cas protests. “Don’t mark me.”

The words are painful, and Cas, the little fucker, knew that they would be. Dean sucks harder, and Cas whimpers, another wave of his arousal washing over Dean.

Dean releases Cas’s neck with a regretful sigh, whispers into his skin, “Don’t you remember how good it was? How good I made you feel? Cas, he can’t do that. I’m your mate. No matter what happens, you can’t change that.”

“Dean, I—” Cas’s voice wavers, finally, but it doesn’t feel as good as Dean thought it would. “Please just let me go. If you can’t control yourself, I’m going to quit.”

Just ten more seconds, Dean thinks. Ten more seconds of this delicious smell, and then he’ll let Cas go.

”Dean,” Cas says, fear just beginning to seep into his scent, and Dean freezes, the familiarity of the position he and Cas are in, if not the situation, finally sinking in.

The last time he had had Cas pressed up against a wall—not a wall, a door, a voice in his mind whispers—the whole room had stunk of fear. But god, Dean had been so angry, so blind with irrational fury—fury that his mate was being insubordinate, fury that he’d been caught the _one_ goddamn time he’d slipped up—that he’d blocked out the unwanted smell, let the alpha inside him hone in on the mate-scent and just _run_ with it.

He keeps his eyes closed, inhales slow and deep, and fuck, it’s almost as though he’s back in that bedroom, Cas trapped there with him, terrified yet unable to speak because it was biologically imperative that he obey direct orders—orders with intent—from his alpha, and Dean had snapped at him to _stay right there_ and _keep his mouth shut_ , like all the promises he’d made about never abusing his biological advantage meant nothing.

Dean and Cas may not be together anymore, but the mate-bond is still there, no matter what they do, and it’d be so easy for Dean to issue a direct order, to make fucking sure that Cas doesn’t marry Balthazar. To follow it up by rutting against Cas until he was properly wet, dripping with slick, greedy for Dean’s knot and willing to beg.

But fuck, it was that kind of thinking—or non-thinking—that got Dean into this mess in the first place. If he’d controlled the anger, if he’d just reined in his alpha instincts, he’s sure they would have been able to fix things… but he’s gone down this trail of thoughts maybe a million times, and repeating it now won’t help matters.

He draws one last, long breath, unable to resist pressing a quick, close-mouthed kiss to Cas’s neck, and then he slowly backs away, releasing Cas’s hands as he does so.

There’s surprise in Cas’s deep blue eyes, and Dean’s disproportionately hurt by it—after all, he himself had almost thought he might lose it entirely and just fuck Cas right then and there, fuck into him so hard that he forgot about Balthazar entirely.

“Fine,” Dean finally says, clearing his throat. He backs up to his desk and grabs two manila folders from the top of it. “Take the top folder down to Chuck in HR.”

“And the bottom one?” Cas asks, taking the folders from Dean.

“Put the articles inside it in chronological order and take it up to the twenty-third floor. Leave it with Crowley’s secretary.”

Cas nods. “Anything else?”

Yeah—don’t get married to Balthazar.

But defiance flashes through Cas’s eyes, as though he knows exactly what Dean’s thinking—hell, he probably does; no one knows Dean like Cas does.

So Dean slaps a smile on his face. “Nope, that’s all.”

Cas nods and starts to leave.

“Hey, wait,” Dean says, and Cas pauses, half-turns in the doorway so that he can see Dean. “When you get back, maybe you can give Lisa a call for me, tell her I’d like to get dinner with her tomorrow night.”

Cas stiffens. “Why don’t you call her yourself?”

“You’re my personal assistant. You’re supposed to handle my appointments, so if I want—”

“I don’t handle appointments in your personal life, Dean.”

“Actually, you do. Y’know, _personal_ assistant?”

“Fine,” Cas says, ire obvious in his voice. “Anything else? Would you like me to steam you a latte while I’m at it?”

“Just black coffee for me. You know that, Cas,” Dean says, lowering his eyes to the ground to avoid the furious stare that he knows is pointed in his direction.

He expects Cas to march out immediately, but it’s silent for a long moment, and when Dean looks back up, Cas is glaring at the ground, brows furrowed like he’s debating something with himself.

“What Ariel should call Balthazar has been a point of contention between us for some time. I’d hoped I could resolve it without ever disturbing you. Had you asked politely instead of… getting physical, I would have said so,” Cas says finally, words still carrying that undercurrent of anger. “I will speak with him again when I get home tonight.”

Then he exits the office and shuts Dean’s door with a soft click.

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, shaking his head and moving to take a seat at his desk.

He’d had the stupid notion that maybe he could convince Cas to quit fooling around with Balthazar, or at least get him to stop Ariel from calling him “Dad,” and okay, it’s good to know that Cas is on his side as far as that goes, but titles seem far less important now that he knows Cas is _marrying_ the guy.

When Dean looks down at his hands, they’re shaking minutely. He turns his gaze back onto his dark computer screen and thinks he’s gonna be sick.

Cas is Dean’s mate. _Dean’s._ If he was ever gonna take a last name, it was gonna be Winchester. He can’t—he fucking _can’t_ get married to someone else.

Dean closes his eyes and groans.

He thought he could let Cas go, thought that he’d screwed up so bad that it was his only choice, but he knows now that it’s impossible to just let Cas go, impossible to let him make such a commitment to someone else.

How can Cas even _think_ about marrying someone else? Dean doesn’t even feel right fucking anyone who’s not Cas while he’s sober, his brain sending off signals of _wrong_ and _not-Cas_ and _fuck, no_ on a loop.

Dean rubs his temples, hoping to relieve the headache that just set in, and sits up straight in his seat. There’s only one thing he can do: try to fix the unfixable before it’s too late. A small voice in the back of his mind tells him it’s already too late—it’s _been_ too late ever since he walked out of Cas’s house all those years ago, too much of a coward to try and apologize—but he just can’t accept that right now. He’s gonna fix things, if it kills him.

But until then, there’s work to be done if he doesn’t wanna lose his job.

* * *

Sam sounds surprised when he answers the phone, and Dean says, “Dude, you act like I never call you.”

“Not often,” Sam says. “And we only saw each other what, just over a week ago? I figured you wouldn’t be calling for another two weeks or so, at least.”

Dean sighs and decides to drop the subject because he’s really not in the mood. “Did you mean all that crap you said to Cas back at the funeral reception?” he asks.

It’s silent for a moment, and then Sam says, “I’m sorry. Is uh, is everything okay between you and Cas?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Dean, I’m _sorry_. I didn’t want to—”

“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? I’m asking you a question. Why do you keep apologizing?”

After another pause, Sam says, “You’re not about to chew me out, then?”

“I wouldn’t have waited a whole week to do it,” Dean answers.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Sam says. When Dean doesn’t respond, Sam says, “Right—your question. I… yeah. I meant it. You and Cas should have made up years ago. Did Cas ever tell you why he moved to Akron?”

“To get away from his family,” Dean says.

“That too, but uh, Gabriel was the one who suggested Akron. And I might have been the one who told Gabriel where you were.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dean grumbles.

“You were so unhappy! I thought that maybe… maybe if Cas was in the same city with you, you guys would have another chance,” Sam says. “But you stayed unhappy, and I just—I figured if I was going to see you guys in person, I’d have a talk with you. I didn’t expect you two to have the same… the same chemistry that you used to.”

“But we don’t,” Dean says.

“Maybe you don’t think so, but from the outside, it definitely looks the same,” Sam says. “I don’t know if you were there for this part of the conversation, but the way Cas looks at you when you’re not looking is… it’s the same as it used to be, only weighed down with sadness.”

“Well, yeah. Sadness because he’s disappointed in me,” Dean says.

“Can you not do that for once?” Sam says, sounding frustrated.

“Do what?”

“You always see a situation and think of the worst possible reasons for it,” Sam says. “What if Cas is sad because you guys _aren’t_ together?”

“Well we’re only not together because I—”

“No, see, you’re doing it again. Maybe he wants to try again. Maybe the only reason that he hasn’t brought it up, the reason why he’s sad, is because he thinks you don’t want him.”

Dean’s speechless for a moment at the ridiculousness of Sam’s suggestions. When he finds his voice, he says, “There’s no goddamn way. Look, Cas and Balthazar are—are—they’re fucking _engaged_ , Sammy.”

“So? A biological bond precedes a legal one in almost all cases,” Sam says. “And maybe he only accepted Balthazar’s proposal because he—”

“Why are you so convinced that he wants me at all, hmm? Just because he looked my way a couple times at the funeral? Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was playing his part?” Dean says.

“No. You can’t fake emotions like that,” Sam argues.

“You don’t know that,” Dean says. Sam starts to say something, but Dean talks over him, “Look, he knows, okay? He knows that I—that I want him.”

A pause. “He knows?”

“Yes. I told him today.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I want him.”

“What, in those exact words?”

“What does it matter how I said it?” Dean asks.

“It just matters,” Sam says. “What exactly did you tell him?”

Dean groans, because how the hell is he supposed to remember what he said exactly? “I told him not to marry Balthazar,” he says—he’s absolutely sure about that part. “Sam, it doesn’t matter. He knows that I want him. He just doesn’t care.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sam says.

“So if I said I was planning to break up the marriage, you’d be all for it,” Dean says.

“Technically they’re still only engaged, right?” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dean answers. “But he and Balthazar have been together for almost a year or something. I just thought… I thought I’d talk to you first.”

Sam laughs shortly. “What, am I your moral compass now?”

“Yes, wise one. Point me in the right direction,” Dean says dryly, and Sam laughs again.

It’d been so easy for Dean to think that he’d do anything to get Cas back, still running on emotions leftover from the confrontation with Cas, but after getting home, Dean’s resolve had faded some. Sure, it still feels like shit to think that Cas might be taking someone else’s name, but breaking up an engagement when both parties are happy is a pretty fucked up thing to do.

So yeah, maybe Dean _is_ treating Sam kind of like a moral compass.

“Seriously though,” Sam says, “I think you should go for it. I thought so years ago. And after seeing you two together last week, I’m more certain than ever.”

“You don’t think it’s too late? They’re getting married.”

“It’s better to break it up before they actually do get married, isn’t it? If—if Cas is still the only one in your heart, you should go for him.”

“Seriously, Sammy? The _only one in my heart?_ God, you’re such a girl,” Dean says, ignoring the warmth in his chest at having Sam’s approval. It feels good to have someone supporting him.

“You’re the one who needs to grow a pair and figure out whether or not you’re gonna try to win back your mate,” Sam says.

“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Today Cas told me that he’s happy. After all the shit he’s been through—and not just the stuff with me, but the life he’s had so far—he deserves to be happy.”

“Do you honestly believe that he’s happy?” Sam asks. “You two were mates. You’ve gotta know all his tells. When he said that he was happy, were you paying attention? I mean, he said that to me, too, but he was lying—I’m sure of it.”

Honestly, Dean can’t remember what Cas had looked like when he’d said that Balthazar made him happy. The alpha in him had been so close to surfacing, possessive anger roaring through his veins, and just thinking about it makes his blood pound. He remembers that Cas is crosstown, spending his time with another alpha, and it _burns_.

“Okay, fine. Maybe you couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying,” Sam says, breaking the silence. “But if you don’t talk to him, if you don’t try, you’ll never know. He could have just agreed to marry Balthazar because he thought it was the best offer he was ever gonna get. There aren’t many alphas out there willing to marry without the possibility of mating.”

Dean forces himself to calm down, maintain control. “Yeah. Yeah, you’ve got a point,” he says.

“I know the uncertainty isn’t ideal. But you should take that chance.” After a brief pause, Sam says, “I don’t know if he’s said anything to you, but Adam’s taking a chance.”

This is news to Dean. “What? Who’s he after?”

“Uh, Michael.”

Dean frowns, moves over to the kitchen table, and sits down. “You mind saying that again? There might be something in my ear, because I thought you said Michael.”

“No, Dean, you heard right,” Sam says.

“Cas’s brother, Michael?”

Sam sighs. “Yeah. Dean, can you just—”

“Dude, how the hell did that even happen?” Dean interrupts. “How do you even know? Did he—” Dean pauses, sighs. “He told you, but he didn’t tell me. Is that it?”

“We agreed not to tell you at first because we knew you’d react like this.”

“Why shouldn’t I—wait. ‘At first.’ You said ‘at first.’ How long has this been going on?” Dean demands.

“Not that long, okay? I only heard about it like a month ago. Okay, two months ago. But Michael’s a good man, Dean. A good alpha. Hell, you knew him better than I did.”

This much Dean has to admit—Michael put all his brothers through college one way or another, pretty much on his own steam. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

“No, of course not,” Sam says. “Dad would flip out.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean says, doing the math in his head. Adam’s what, twenty, turning twenty-one this month? And Michael’s ten years and a couple months older than Cas, so he’s gotta be thirty-three by now. “Twelve years is one hell of an age gap.”

“I know,” Sam says. “I won’t disagree with you there. But it’s what Adam wants.”

“Yeah well, Cas and I got what we wanted back then, and look what happened,” Dean says.

“But do you regret it?”

“What?”

“Do you regret it? Meeting Cas, mating with him, everything,” Sam clarifies. And Dean definitely doesn’t regret any of it, but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud. His silence is answer enough, though, so Sam says, “So if you could start over, you’d still court him. You’d still want to mate him, want to be with him.”

“But Adam’s practically a kid.”

“Dude, are you even hearing yourself? Don’t say that Adam’s a kid. He’s older than me by a year, and he’s definitely older than you and Cas were when you decided to mate,” Sam says. “He has the right to make his own choice when it comes to this.”

“Why are you on his side?” Dean asks, frowning.

“Because he knows what he wants, and he’s fighting for it,” Sam answers readily. “So I have to ask you this, Dean. What do _you_ want? What are you willing to do?”

And that’s just the question, isn’t it?

* * *

Tuesday morning, Dean apologizes to Cas first thing for his attitude, but he says that he isn’t budging on Ariel—he doesn’t want her to think of Balthazar as her father, because he isn’t. Cas says that he’s gained ground with Balthazar, which—well, it’s hard for an omega to tell an alpha what to do, so Dean decides to give him some more time.

The rest of the day—and week—passes by quickly, one assignment blending into the next, and Dean’s just grateful that he doesn’t have to pull any all-nighters. The personal issues between Dean and Cas are a pain in the ass, but as an assistant, Cas is still a freakin’ godsend, especially when it comes to time management. Dean doesn’t think he’s ever gotten work done so efficiently before.

He’s so efficient, in fact, that he finishes twenty minutes early on Friday. But Adler said something about dropping by to see him after work, so Dean’s gotta stay anyway.

The minutes tick by slowly, which sucks because this means Dean’s got time to think about Cas. They were quiet around each other after the talk on Tuesday morning, keeping everything strictly business, and the politeness was damn near painful. Dean hadn’t realized how much he cared about the plain _friendship_ that he’d established here with Cas until it dissolved.

He’s dragged out of his thoughts by a knock on his door, and he looks up to see Garth walking in, trailed by Benny and Charlie.

Cas pokes his head into the room and says, “I’m going to leave now, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead. Have a nice weekend,” Dean says.

“You too,” Cas says, backing out of the room again.

Garth closes the door to Dean’s office, and it’s quiet for a moment, Dean’s gaze alternating between each of his three friends. Finally, he says, “So what is this, intervention, part two?”

“We’re not here to kid around,” Charlie says, arms folded across her chest. “Benny says that the dynamic between you and Cas has been especially tense this week. What’s going on?”

“If it’s getting too hard to work together, I can request Cas as an assistant,” Benny offers.

“No,” Dean says quickly—maybe a little too quickly, from the way his friends are looking at him. “You’re a senior analyst, so it’s not like you need an assistant. And you and Cas don’t get along all that well, anyway,” he adds, rationalizing his objection.

“Right. I’m sure those are the main reasons why Benny shouldn’t request Cas,” Charlie says.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Garth says.

“You guys are too goddamn nosy,” Dean says. “Nothing’s changed since the last time you cornered me, all right?”

Garth sighs. “Dean, you know that we know you’re lying, so why do you even bother?”

“Why do you bother asking when you know I’m gonna lie?” Dean responds.

“Because maybe someday you’re going to realize that you don’t have to deal with everything on your own,” Charlie says. “And then you’ll talk.”

There’s a brief pause, and then Benny says, “Looks like it’s not today, though. Free to grab some drinks at O’Reilly’s tonight?”

“I don’t know, man—”

“Oh come on, we know you’ve got no social life outside of us. You’re coming,” Charlie insists.

“Fine. But Adler’s stopping by in a few minutes, so you’re gonna have to wait,” Dean says.

“Well, yeah. It’s not like we’re going straight to the bar. It’s not even five thirty yet,” Charlie says. “Anyway… you’re really not giving us anything today?”

“No,” Dean answers.

“One of these days, I’m gonna just ask Cas,” Charlie says, and Dean’s pretty sure she means it to be sort of a threat, but he’s also almost positive that Cas wouldn’t tell her anything—if not for Dean’s sake, then for his own.

So he says, “Sure. Go right ahead.”

“You said it,” Charlie says, grinning.

Then there’s a light knock on the door, and it swings open to admit Adler. The man looks surprised by the number of people in Dean’s office.

“Was I not invited to this meeting?” he asks in jest.

“We’ll wait outside,” Benny says, passing by Adler to exit the room. Garth nods to Adler as he passes, as does Charlie, and then they’re gone, and the door’s closed.

“So, Dean-o! What’s new?” Adler asks, stepping closer to Dean’s desk.

“Uh, not much. Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Not anything too specific,” Adler says with a wide smile. “Just wanted to congratulate you on your stellar performance this month. I held a meeting with the board of directors today, and they’re all very impressed.” Dean’s disbelief must show on his face, because Adler says, “Yes, even Crowley.”

“It’s not all me. Cas has been a whole lot of help,” Dean says.

“Oh, don’t be modest, Dean. This is a good thing! Now, just between you and me, there’s a Senior Vice President position opening up in the near future.”

“What? How?” Dean asks.

“Don’t mind that,” Adler says. “If you keep up this caliber of work, there is no doubt in my mind that that spot will be yours. You’ll even be able to bring your assistant with you—you wanted a better position for him, didn’t you?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Well, there you go! You keep doing your thing, and your assistant will get promoted with you,” Adler says, beaming and reaching over to slap Dean on the shoulder. “Make me proud, Dean-o.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dean says.

“I’m sure you will, my boy. I’m sure you will.”

* * *

Dean wakes up slowly, a light buzzing in his head. His face feels hot, and when he starts to open his eyes, it’s too freakin’ bright. Groaning, he sits up and glares at the window—apparently he left the blinds open last night. It’s hot with the sun streaming into the room, and he shoves the covers off before fumbling for the nightstand, where his phone is.

Ten o’clock.

Seems getting blind drunk is effective for staying asleep. Dean doesn’t even remember how he got home last night, which means Benny probably took over for him; Dean is usually the designated driver.

Glancing back down at his phone, Dean sees that he has a new text from Cas, so he opens it.

_Ariel has a fever. Could you pick up some cold medicine?_

It was sent twelve hours ago—Dean was still at the bar, in the process of getting hammered, and now he feels awful. Why the hell would Cas be asking for Dean to get cold medicine anyway? Shouldn’t he be going to Balthazar for that? But thinking this way makes Dean feel petty, and he rubs his forehead, annoyed with himself.

There’s only the one text, so Dean can only assume Cas went out himself to get medicine or asked Balthazar to do it for him. Either way, Ariel won’t have gone without treatment, so she should be fine… After deliberating over it for a minute, Dean decides to give Cas a call, just to make sure Ariel’s okay.

Cas picks up promptly. “Dean.”

“Hey,” Dean says, and his voice is a lot scratchier than he’d expected, so he clears his throat.

“Did you just wake up?” Cas asks.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry I missed your text last night. Is Ariel all right?”

“Yes, she’s fine. I had Balthazar bring over some cold medicine,” Cas replies.

“Right yeah, I figured,” Dean says, and then he frowns. “Bring over? I thought he’d moved in.”

“What? When did I say that?” Cas responds.

“Oh,” Dean says, and his chest suddenly feels lighter, which really doesn’t make much sense, because living together or not, Cas and Balthazar are still fucking engaged. “I guess I just assumed.”

“What, sweetie?”

Dean blinks, startled, but it registers with him that Cas’s voice was softer, directed away from the phone, and okay, he was probably talking to Ariel.

“It’s Dean,” Cas continues, and Dean can’t hear what Ariel is saying, but Cas answers, “I’ll ask him, okay?”

“What does she want?” Dean asks.

“She’d like me to drop her off at your place for today. Would that interfere with your plans?”

“No,” Dean says. “I didn’t have any plans for today.”

“Excellent. When can I come over?”

“Give me twenty minutes. I just need to hop in the shower and clean up a little,” Dean answers, getting to his feet and walking over to his dresser to grab some clothes.

“All right. Thank you, Dean.”

“Yeah, no problem, Cas.”

Dean hangs up and sets his phone down on top of the dresser.

* * *

Just over twenty minutes later, Dean opens his door for Cas and Ariel. “Come in,” he says, even as he realizes that Cas hasn’t ever actually come to the door before, let alone into the apartment.

But Cas doesn’t falter as he steps over the threshold. Ariel stops at Dean’s feet, security blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and stares up at him with a big smile despite her pink nose and slightly red eyes.

“Hey, baby,” Dean says, leaning down to pick her up. “How’d you get sick, hmm?”

“Tommy was sick at daycare,” Ariel says accusingly.

“How dare he,” Dean says, unable to hold back a smile. “So you’re here now. What do you wanna do?”

“ _Balto_! I wanna watch _Balto_ ,” Ariel says, and it’s obvious that she’s had this in mind for a while.

Dean laughs. “All right, we’ll watch _Balto_. Let me put you down on the couch.”

“I can walk,” Ariel protests, so Dean sets her down and lets her make her own way toward the couch.

“Again, thank you,” Cas says with a small smile, passing over a plastic bag.

Dean looks inside and finds an extra jacket and some Children’s Tylenol. “No worries,” he says, grinning.

Cas starts turning away, but he stops mid-turn, and Dean sees that Ariel is right there, grasping Cas’s hand—apparently she didn’t go all the way over to the couch. “Daddy, you’re not staying?”

Cas’s eyes widen, like he didn’t expect this to be an issue. “What?”

“Daddy, stay.”

“Ariel, your daddy probably has some other things he should be doing,” Dean says.

“No, he’s taking care of me today,” Ariel insists, still looking up at Cas. “He promised.”

“But you’re here now,” Dean says, trying to give Cas a way out because it doesn’t look like he wants to stay. “You’ve got me, right?”

But Ariel’s still giving off distress at the idea of Cas leaving, and Dean glances up to see that Cas is still focused on their daughter. Then Cas makes a motion toward the door, and Dean wants to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, ignoring their daughter like that, but he only pushes the door closed.

The relief that comes from Ariel is palpable, her sugary, caramel-apple scent even sweeter than usual, and she releases Cas’s hand, bounding toward the couch.

“Is this all right?” Cas asks quietly, tentatively.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dean replies.

“ _Balto_!” Ariel shouts from the couch, so Dean gestures for Cas to go ahead.

“I’ll get you a glass of water, okay?” Dean says.

Cas nods as he moves toward the couch. “Thank you.”

When Dean returns to the living room, he finds Ariel climbing into Cas’s lap, dislodging her blanket. Cas laughs and tugs it away from her, rearranging it when she’s comfortable, and the fondness in his features is breathtaking. Dean places Cas’s glass of water and Ariel’s bottle—freshly refilled with apple juice—on the coffee table and turns away to locate his _Balto_ DVD.

When the previews start rolling, Dean grabs the remote and skips to the menu, pressing play when it comes up. Then he sits down on the couch, a safe distance from Cas.

“Daddy,” Ariel says as the Universal intro starts playing.

“Yeah?” Dean replies as Cas says, “Yes?”

They lock gazes briefly before turning their attention to Ariel, and Dean notices that she has wormed one hand out from beneath her blanket, using it to reach for him. It’s instinct more than anything else that has him reaching back, taking that small hand in his.

“Sit closer,” Ariel demands.

Dean spares a glance at Cas before shifting closer, but Ariel continues to glare at him until he’s pretty much right next to Cas, shoulders almost-but-not-quite brushing. “Happy?”

“No. Now we have to start over.”

“What?” Dean says, and then he realizes that she’s talking about the movie. “C’mon, we only missed three lines. You know what Grandma Rosie’s gonna say anyway, don’t you?”

“No, we have to start from the beginning!” Ariel insists.

“Dean, just—”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Dean says, snagging the remote with an air of mock-annoyance. “The things I do for you, you big baby.”

Ariel just beams at him and waits until he’s settled down again before grabbing his hand and pulling it under her blanket, twining their fingers together. This brings Dean’s arm into contact with Cas’s, and Dean can feel the way Cas tenses up slightly, but he doesn’t protest.

Christ, this is gonna be a long hour.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm having a good trip so far, and lo and behold, there is indeed wifi in this countryside town. (Apparently it's entered the modern era during my five-year absence.) So here I am with another chapter for you.
> 
> I also can tell you with almost complete certainty that there will be a total of eleven chapters in this fic, plus the potential for an epilogue. I'm almost finished writing the last chapter, which is exciting and a little difficult bc I hate writing endings, blargh. Anyway! Happy reading:)

The phone rings on Dean’s desk at five o’clock on Wednesday evening, and he picks it up without looking at it, eyes still on the spreadsheet on the screen. “Winchester speaking.”

“Dean.”

Dean stills. That’s Cas’s voice, rougher than usual, like he’s got a sore throat, maybe. It isn’t normal for Cas to use the phone to contact Dean when there isn’t someone waiting on the line, preferring to just open the door between their offices. “Cas, you okay?” Dean asks, turning away from the monitor.

“Yes, I’m—fine.” After a pause, he adds, “I don’t feel well.”

“Why the hell are you telling me over the phone?” Dean blurts out. “Get in here.”

“Very well. Just a moment.”

There’s a sharp click over the line, an indication that Cas has hung up the phone, and about five seconds later, the door swings open, bringing with it Cas’s sweet scent. And yeah, he _doesn’t_ look fine, forehead sweaty and cheeks flushed.

“As you know, Ariel had a fever over the weekend,” Cas says, stepping away from the door and coming toward Dean’s desk. “Perhaps I—”

But he takes another step forward, and no, this isn’t Cas’s typical scent, this is—this is Cas just beginning to slide into heat, sweeter and even more enticing than usual, and despite his best efforts, Dean finds himself instantly hard, rearing to go. “Wait—stop,” he says, hand thrown out to keep Cas from coming any closer, because _fuck_ , this is so not going to end well.

“Dean, what—” Cas starts, but then his nostrils flare, and he must scent Dean’s arousal in the air because his eyes go wide and startled.

“Cas, you’re not—you can’t be—” No, the timing’s all wrong. Cas is supposed to have his heats early in the month. Dean knows this because he is typically the most restless toward the end of the first week of each month. Today’s the 18th of September. “Your heat shouldn’t be starting for another two weeks!”

“No,” Cas says, shaking his head. “No, it can’t—I’ve been taking suppressants, Dean.”

“Okay, so why did you stop?”

“I haven’t stopped,” Cas snaps, and it seems now that he knows his problem, it’s only getting worse.

He sways a little, and Dean gets to his feet, but he doesn’t dare move closer even to support Cas, because if he touches Cas, no matter how innocent his intentions, he really doesn’t know what he’ll do, doesn’t think he’ll be able to let go.

“I took a pill just this morning,” Cas continues, tugging at his tie to loosen it, and _Jesus_ , Dean can smell it now, the scent of Cas’s slick drifting across the space between them. “F-fuck,” Cas groans, looking absolutely uncomfortable, and Dean can practically feel the knot at the base of his dick swelling up a little already, anxious to be buried in his omega’s tight little hole.

“Do you—” Dean’s voice cracks, and he swallows and tries again, “Do you need me to take you home? Or I could call—call him, tell him to—to come get you.” Anything to keep Dean from ravishing Cas on his desk, an idea that is becoming more enticing with every second that Dean spends in Cas’s presence, taking in his ridiculously addicting scent.

Dean snatches up the phone on his desk, urgency fueling his actions, but then Cas’s hand—hot, hot, so hot, _too_ hot—lands on top of Dean’s, slamming the phone back down on the receiver.

“No—no, I can’t. Not with Balthazar,” Cas says, and when Dean looks up, Cas’s flushed face is only inches from his, swaying even closer as Cas leans forward over Dean’s desk.

Dean instantly draws back, yanking his hand away rapidly before it can flip over and grab onto Cas’s like it wants to so badly. “What the hell do you mean, not with Balthazar? You’re engaged to the guy,” Dean says, backing into his chair and kicking it out of his way. His back hits the shelf behind his desk, and fuck, Cas is still _too goddamn_ _close_.

But Cas doesn’t seem to have the same qualms, coming around the desk toward Dean, and yeah, Dean has an opening to sprint for the door—which, shit, it’s still fucking _open_ , and Dean can even see into Cas’s office from where he’s standing—but he can’t seem to control his feet right now.

“Dean,” Cas says, voice low and thready, and Dean thinks he’s falling apart. “Dean, please—I’ve missed you so much.”

“Cas, you’re in heat,” Dean gets out past a tongue that suddenly feels too thick for his mouth. “You’d say anything if it meant—”

“No—no, that’s not how it works, and you know it,” Cas interrupts, and now he’s right in front of Dean again, reeking of want and need, so much that Dean can hardly tell the difference between his own want and Cas’s. “D-Dean, I need it—need your knot.”

Dean groans, hands coming up to grip Cas’s shoulders, but they can’t seem to decide whether to pull Cas closer or shove him farther away. “Cas, you’re not thinking straight. Let me just—”

“No—Dean, you don’t _understand_ ,” Cas growls, angry. “I _can’t_ take any other knot. Only yours.” Before Dean can say that that’s impossible, Cas grits out, “I’ve tried, Dean. Toys weren’t enough, and other alphas, I just—just couldn’t. I almost threw up.”

The admission strikes something primal inside Dean, something that crows with glee at the undeniable _proof_ that Cas is Dean’s, has always been Dean’s. “Even with Balthazar?” Dean asks, greedy for confirmation.

Cas shakes his head. “Just thinking about it makes me—” he shudders, words cutting off, and leans farther into Dean’s space, as close as he can get with Dean’s hands still holding him in place. “Dean. Please— _please_.”

Dean knows he shouldn’t, knows he should hold his breath and stay firm, force himself to slip away from Cas, but his upstairs brain isn’t exactly functioning at optimal capacity—holy _fuck_ Cas’s pupils are dilating fast—so he inhales, cinnamon and warmth and perfection and fucking _home_ rushing into his lungs, and Dean’s lost.

His hands tighten on Cas’s shoulders, the last hope of getting out of this without screwing something up—oh god, _screwing_ —fading fast. And then he hauls Cas in, taking Cas’s mouth and drinking in the undeniably pleased sound Cas makes in response, fingers coming up to clutch at the lapels of Dean’s shirt.

Dean takes one step away from the shelf, then two, pushing Cas with him until Cas’s thighs hit the desk behind him. Cas just goes, taking direction easily and perfectly, and fuck, Dean thinks he could kiss him forever. But that’s not enough, not now, not ever, and Dean slides his hands down to fumble with the buckle of Cas’s belt, gets frustrated when the goddamn thing doesn’t cooperate.

Cas drags his lips to the side, kisses and licks his way along Dean’s jaw to the base of his neck, where he buries his nose and inhales, quick, short breaths that highlight his urgency, his need.

By the time Dean gets Cas’s pants open, Cas has unbuttoned Dean’s shirt with surprising dexterity and is mouthing at Dean’s chest, leaving little bites in his wake. And sure, that’s cute and all, but Dean needs to be inside Cas, and this isn’t getting them any closer.

He backs up a step, taking Cas with him, and spins Cas around by the hips. He barely even has to press to get Cas to bend over his desk, perky little ass pointed at him, and god _damn_ , Dean’s missed this view. Not wasting a second, he tugs Cas’s dress pants over the curve of his ass, taking his underwear down at the same time, and a wave of his scent washes over Dean, thick and invasive, and Dean can almost feel himself dropping to his knees, because he wants to lap up the honey-sweet slick that’s already leaking from Cas’s hole, wants to bury his tongue in there and eat Cas out ‘til he’s screaming.

But Cas is already whining softly, his pucker clenching and unclenching like it’s aching to be filled, can’t stand to be empty, and there’s simply no way Dean can ignore that.

He frees his own cock in record time, a freakin’ miracle considering his fingers are pretty much acting without input from his brain—Dean feels like every goddamn brain cell he has is hyper-focused on Cas, the curve of his neck above his shirt collar, the slight arch of his back as he attempts to—god, to _present_ to Dean.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean hisses, gathering some of Cas’s slick and using it to lube himself up.

“Get on with it,” Cas says, voice low, and Dean presses his free hand to the back of Cas’s neck before he even has the time to think about it, a silent rebuke for trying to boss Dean around.

He lines himself up, little shocks of pleasure running through him as Cas’s hole continues to clench against him, like it’s trying to draw Dean inside.

“D-Dean, stop teasing,” Cas demands, trying to shove back but unable to because of Dean’s hold on him.

Dean is about to speak, but then Cas’s entire body shivers, and a fresh wave of slick leaks from him, stealing Dean’s words and clouding his vision. He starts pressing inside, just the head breaching that tight ring of muscle, but a sudden realization has him drawing back, and Cas nearly sobs at the loss, hands reaching back to scrabble at Dean’s thighs.

“Cas, I don’t—protection,” Dean manages to get out, voice thick with want.

“Can’t—Dean, I’ve been on suppressants for years,” Cas says even as his hips roll back, desperate for any contact. “I can’t—can’t get pregnant for a few cycles at least.”

“You sure about that?” Dean asks, because the last thing they need right now is another kid, but fuck, just thinking about how Cas must have looked while he was pregnant with Ariel, belly round and tits swollen, makes him feel cheated, makes him want to knock Cas up again so that they can go through it all together.

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas groans, like he’s in pain, “Dean, _fuck me_.”

There’s really nothing else to do but line himself up again and press in. He means to go slow, but Cas moans, muscles tightening around the head of Dean’s cock and practically sucking him in, and Dean can’t stop his hips from jerking forward, burying himself to the hilt in one quick thrust.

“ _Oh_ ,” Dean whispers without meaning to, and leans down to plaster himself over Cas’s back because this, this is the most like himself that he’s felt in _years_.

Cas whines in protest, hips shifting restlessly, grinding on Dean’s cock because right, he’s still in heat, still desperate to be bred, no matter that he supposedly can’t get pregnant this time around. But god, it feels so good, so hot and wet and smooth around him that Dean’s loath to pull out even an inch.

“Move,” Cas growls, anger coloring his tone, and Dean reminds himself that this isn’t about closeness, isn’t about them—it’s about helping his—his _friend_ through his heat.

The inside of Dean’s mouth suddenly goes sour, and he straightens, grasping Cas by the hips to hold him still. Cas’s upper body strains in protest, and Dean absently wishes he’d taken the time to rip Cas’s shirt off, because then he’d be able to watch the rippling of his back muscles.

Then Dean pulls out and slams back in, drawing a startled yelp from Cas.

“Oh, fuck,” he curses, because just being inside Cas was good enough, but pumping into him, feeling his cock dragging along Cas’s insides, searing and slick and perfect, is friggin’ indescribable.

Dean tightens his hold on Cas’s hips and starts bodily dragging them back to meet each forward snap of his own hips, spurred on by each pleasure-thick noise that he forces out of Cas’s throat.

“Fuh-faster—Dean—please—” Cas pants, arms braced on the desk, and yeah, if Cas wants faster, Dean can do faster.

He fucks into Cas harder, deeper, thighs burning a little with the strain, but god, he’s sure he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. It’s silent except for Dean’s grunts and Cas’s responding wails, which he muffles by burying his face in the crook of one of his arms.

“That doin’ it for you, Cas?” Dean gets out, pounding into Cas’s sweet, dripping little hole unrelentingly.

“Yes, fuh-uh-uck,” Cas sobs, clenching around Dean impatiently, like he can’t wait to be tied, can’t wait to be bred up like a proper little omega. Just as this thought crosses Dean’s mind, Cas moans, “C’mon, Dean—please—need it, need you—”

“Need me to what?” Dean demands, and he wants to slow this down, drag it out, but he can’t, _can’t_ , because he’s already so goddamn close that he’s gonna come any minute now.

“Kn-knot me—fuck, _now_ —knot me, alpha, please!” Cas babbles—

And that, apparently, is the last straw.

Dean shoves into Cas one last time, hard, pleasure flashing white-hot behind his eyes as he starts to come. His knot swells up, locking him up right where he needs to be, and he barely hears Cas cry out through the sound of blood pounding in his ears.

Cas’s insides convulse around him, one powerful contraction after another, milking Dean for all he’s worth, and before Dean’s mind has quieted down enough for him to think straight, he’s coming again, hips making aborted little jerks as though he’s not already pumping his come as deep inside Cas as he can.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dean rasps, voice hoarse, and slumps forward, bracing his forearms on the desk on either side of Cas’s torso and resting his forehead at the base of Cas’s neck, because he’s pretty much positive his legs can’t support his full weight right now.

Cas takes his weight without complaint, squeezing around Dean’s length and making soft, pleased sounds in the back of his throat as Dean fills him up.

The scent that radiates from Cas as Dean finishes is bliss, the smell of a sated mate, warm and soothing and happy, and Dean breathes it in greedily, one long hit after another. They lie there for a couple long minutes, fucked-out and still coming down.

But Dean’s mind turns back on, inevitably, and as what they just did really starts to sink in, he tenses up, because what the _fuck_ did they just do?

“Shit, Cas—”

“Do not apologize,” Cas interrupts.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Good, because this wasn’t your fault.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, and he wishes he could hide right now, but he’s kinda stuck here, gonna be tied off for at least the next half hour. He drags in a tired breath. “Cas, I just—what _was_ that?”

“I don’t know,” Cas responds. “I’ve been taking these suppressants for the past six years, and they’ve never failed me.”

“No, but—” Dean makes an aborted hand gesture between them, stopping when he realizes that Cas can’t really see him right now. He starts over, “I was asking about uh, about you and me.”

Before Cas can answer, they hear the door to Cas’s office opening, and _shit_ , anyone who took two steps inside would be able to see them.

“Hey, don’t come in—” Dean starts, but the new arrival is already visible through the doorway, and Dean doesn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified that it’s Benny.

“Dean, where’s Cas?” Benny’s asking, but then his gaze slides over into Dean’s office, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Aw, shit—”

“Just get out!” Dean barks, the smell of another alpha in his presence just too much to take while he’s still tied off in his omega, never mind that said alpha is already married. He tenses up, pulling back slightly because instinct calls for him to defend his mate, but the motion tugs at his groin where they’re tied together, drawing a pained hiss from Cas, and Dean holds still.

Benny nods, taking a few quick steps forward to yank the door closed between Dean and Cas’s offices.

They’re silent for a short while after his departure, and then Dean says, “Okay, so that’s at least one person we’re not gonna be able to keep this from.” Cas nods, a humorless laugh escaping his lips. “What are you gonna tell Balthazar?” Dean asks then.

Cas lets out a soft sigh. “Let me worry about that,” he answers.

“And… the answer to my other question?”

“I don’t know,” Cas admits. “This was never supposed to happen.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Dean says, unable to help the bitterness in his tone.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“No, this wasn’t your fault either,” Dean replies. After a pause, Dean says, “When uh, when we can separate, I want you to go home. I’m gonna give you tomorrow off to go to the doctor’s office and get yourself some new suppressants, okay?”

“All right. Thank you,” Cas says.

A few minutes later, he makes an odd huffing noise, and Dean asks, “Something wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Frowning, Dean says, “Tell me.”

Cas just shakes his head and says, “Today’s September 18.”

It takes a moment for Dean to realize why that date is important. “Aw, shit. Of all days,” he says. “Happy birthday, I guess.”

Cas lets out a tired sigh. “Thank you, Dean.”

By unspoken agreement, they pass the rest of the time together in silence.

* * *

When Dean gets home, he has a missed call from Benny, but no attempt at communication from Charlie or Garth, which means that, as predicted, Benny has decided to keep this a secret—at least for the time being. Dean thinks about calling him back, but he has no clue what he’d say.

God, he can hardly even believe that what happened today was _real_ and not just some scent-induced fever dream. Honestly, he doesn’t even know if it’s possible for heat meds to stop working like that. But Cas isn’t a liar. If he says he took his pill this morning, then Dean believes him.

After a quick, microwaved dinner—he is in no mood to cook—Dean tries for a distraction, so he puts on _Fellowship of the Ring_ and sits down on the couch with _Two Towers_ and _Return of the King_ on deck, because he’s probably not gonna be able to fall asleep tonight.

But he knows this movie too well, well enough that he doesn’t need to pay much attention, leaving his mind free to wander. He starts thinking about going online to do some research on heat suppressants, just to see if there are any health issues Cas needs to be worrying about. But Dean’s been misled enough times into thinking he’s got some deadly illness that he doesn’t exactly trust Web MD anymore…

Of course, he could always call Adam. The kid hasn’t started med school yet, but he’s more health-science-inclined, so he might know something.

Before he can overthink it, he grabs his phone from the coffee table and finds Adam’s number.

“Dean?”

“Hey, man,” Dean says.

“Hey,” Adam says, and Dean can practically hear the smile in his voice. “It’s good to hear from you. I mean, it’s been a while. Everything’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Dean says. “How’re you doing?”

“Uh, good. I found a position at Lawrence Memorial.”

“Wow,” Dean says, impressed. It’s a really nice hospital—Dean went there to get his appendix removed back in high school and hasn’t been back since, but he’s pretty sure it could only have gotten better. “How’d you manage to weasel into there?”

“I guess it helps to know one of the surgeons,” Adam says.

“Oh. Is it anyone I know?”

“Uh… _yeah_. Dude, Lucifer’s been working at Lawrence Memorial for like, four or five years. Did you seriously not know?”

“I don’t really keep up with them,” Dean says.

“Yeah, I figured,” Adam says. “Anyway, uh, any reason why you’re calling me?”

“I just had kind of a medical question,” Dean says.

“Okay, shoot.”

“Can omegas still go into heat when they’re on suppressants?”

“Uh, well, it depends,” Adam answers.

“On what?”

“A couple of things. Mated couples have been known to need to rotate medications now and then to prevent tolerance,” Adam says. “See, the body instinctively wants its release, so it’ll adapt to whatever conditions it’s been put under, and given enough contact with the correct stimuli—that is, the mate-scent—it can overcome suppressant medication. It’s not really a problem with married couples because they don’t have the mate-scent problem.”

It sounds almost like a textbook answer, and fuck, if it’s true, Dean thinks he knows what triggered the failure. He and Cas practically spent all of Saturday attached at the hip—after _Balto_ , Ariel had crawled into Dean’s lap and demanded that Cas read the first _Harry Potter_ book to them. Dean had been prepared to put some more space between them, but then Ariel had insisted that they read along silently while Cas read aloud.

Then again, it could have also been exposure over a long period of time—day-to-day interactions, late nights spent working together in Dean’s office, the extended drives to and from New York…

Meanwhile, Adam continues, “Couples usually deal with this by upping the dosage or switching medication, but it’s not recommended that they up the dosage because pumping too many hormones into anyone’s system is never a good thing.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense,” Dean says.

There’s a brief pause, and then Adam says, “Wait, what is this about?”

“Nothing. I was just curious,” Dean answers.

“But why would you even—you’re not an omega, so—oh, shit.”

“Don’t leap to conclusions, Adam. It isn’t—”

“Did Cas go into heat? Did you two—oh no, this is bad, this is really bad,” Adam says.

“You don’t even know anything yet,” Dean says.

“Well I’m not wrong, am I?” When Dean doesn’t answer immediately, Adam repeats, “ _Am_ I?”

Dean sighs loudly. “No.”

“Oh, god. So the two of you—you—”

“Yeah, we fucked,” Dean says crassly, irritably. “You done freaking out on me?”

“Shit, but what about Balthazar? I thought—no, I _know_ they’re engaged! How did it even happen? I thought you hardly ever saw Cas.”

Dean avoids the second question—he still doesn’t really know how he’s gonna explain working with Cas to his family—and says, “Hold up, how did you know Cas and Balthazar got engaged? Did Sam tell you?”

“Sam knows?” Adam says, sounding surprised. “No, I—Cas called me right after Balthazar proposed.”

And right, it’s so easy for Dean to forget that Cas and Adam were friends, long before Dean ever started caring about Adam. Before Dean had even _met_ Cas.

“So uh, what are you guys gonna do now?” Adam asks.

“I don’t know,” Dean says.

“Well, you gotta do _something_. It’s kind of a big deal.”

“What do you think I should be doing then, hmm? I’d talk to Balthazar, but Cas already said that he’s gonna take care of that, so what else is there?”

“I don’t know, talk to your mom about it?”

“Yeah, I don’t think so. And don’t even think about telling my parents about this. If they hear about this from you, I’m telling Dad about you and Michael,” Dean says.

It’s silent for a moment, and then Adam says, “Oh my god, how do you even know about that?” Before Dean can answer, Adam groans and says, “Sam. It was Sam, right? You thought I found out about the engagement from Sam, so you must’ve called him recently.”

“Yeah,” Dean confirms.

“That traitor,” Adam mutters.

“What are you doing with Michael, anyway?” Dean asks, relieved at the change in topic. “He’s more than a decade older than you.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Adam answers.

“Okay, then what _does_ matter?”

“He cares about me,” Adam says confidently. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. Cas wasn’t too thrilled about it either, but… I’ll tell you what I told him. Michael didn’t even want this at first—it was all me. I had to fight for what I have now, and I won’t let you take it from me.”

“I wasn’t gonna try to split you up,” Dean says defensively.

“Yeah, but you’d like it if we did split up. Don’t even lie,” Adam responds.

Dean doesn’t deny it because yeah, he does believe it’d be better if Adam could find someone closer to his own age. Instead, he says, “I just wanna know why.”

“Why what? Why I’m interested in him?” Adam stops there, and Dean gives him a short while to think it over. “I guess it’s just—I saw a lot of him growing up. He was busy as all hell, but he always had time to look after Cas and Gabriel, and Raphael and Lucifer when they were still around, and I guess I just always associated him with… strength. Reliability.”

It makes sense, Dean guesses. Back in Lawrence, he and Michael had shared late afternoon shifts at Bobby’s. Michael was a cool guy, good at his job and actually pretty fond of Dean—at least, up until he found out about Dean and Cas.

“I don’t scare easy, but… I don’t know, I just like how safe I feel when I’m with him,” Adam says.

“Okay, okay, sharing and caring hour is over,” Dean says. “I get it; you like the guy, and you’re sticking with him. I guess I’m fine with it.”

“Oh,” Adam says. “I’m surprised. I thought I’d have to work harder to win you over.”

“Michael’s… he’s a good alpha. He takes care of his own,” Dean replies. “I still don’t like the age gap, but it could be worse. You could be hell-bent on mating an irresponsible jackass.”

“There’s always that,” Adam says, clearly amused. But he sounds more serious when he continues, “I hope you know what you’re doing with Cas, though. If he’s just coming off years’ worth of suppressants, there shouldn’t be any risk of pregnancy, so that’s one less thing to worry about. Still, I’m sure you know this already, but he’s only just gotten a decent job. Pretty sure he hasn’t even been working there for two months yet—he can’t afford to have another kid right now.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean says. “It uh, I don’t think it’ll happen again.”

“Oh, and another thing. How do you—and don’t bite my head off for asking, but how do you feel about what happened?”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m not, Dean.”

“I’m not talking about this.”

“Dean—”

“He went into heat, and I took care of it,” Dean says. “That’s it. End of story.”

Adam sighs. “I just wanted to say that if you do want Cas back, better to act now than later. I like Balthazar enough—he’s a good guy and all, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t rooting for the home team.”

“The home—what the hell, man.”

“What? It’s true.”

Dean decides to disregard the “home team” comment and says, “Sam told me pretty much the same thing. That I should make a move now. But I don’t even know where I’d start. Especially after what happened today.”

“I don’t know,” Adam says. “I just know that it’d uh, it’d be best if you could be honest with him about your feelings. He was convinced that you didn’t want him, you know. I don’t think he’d believe that you did unless it was coming straight from your lips, and even then, he might not believe it.”

“I guess I expected that,” Dean says. “I’ll… I’ll try talking to him.”

“And y’know, if nothing else, at least you know biology is on your side. He’s obviously still… still inclined toward you, if he spent enough time with you for his heat meds to fail,” Adam says.

Dean knows he means this in a comforting way, but he doesn’t know that Cas _has_ to see Dean pretty much every day at work. “Yeah, you’re right,” Dean says anyway, because again, he’s not about to tell Adam that Cas is his secretary.

“Well, good luck.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah. Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're curious, Benny will confront Dean about what he saw in the next chapter. Chronologically, it'll be after work the next day.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean opens the door for Benny and smiles as naturally as he can—he probably doesn’t pull it off well, because Benny’s returning smile doesn’t look natural at all either, and god, Dean hopes their friendship hasn’t been messed up by this. “Hey,” he says gruffly, stepping back in a silent invitation.

“Dean,” Benny says, smiling faintly. He enters the apartment, and Dean shuts the door behind him.

“Beer?”

“Sure.”

Dean goes to the kitchen to get two beers from the fridge, and then he walks into the living room, where Benny has taken a seat. Dean passes his friend one of the beers and reaches for the remote, but Benny snatches it up before he can get it.

“What?” Dean asks.

“Aren’t you going to explain to me what it was I saw you doing last night?” Benny says slowly.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Dean says—after all, it’s between him and Cas, and Benny doesn’t need to get in the middle of it. “I gave Cas today off to see his doctor about his meds. Now do you wanna watch the game or not?”

Benny sighs. “Dean, I—”

“If you dare say ‘I told you so,’ I swear to god I _will_ kick you out of this apartment.”

“All right, all right,” Benny says, shaking his head. “But you can’t deny that I was right.”

Dean chooses not to respond to that, so Benny just turns the TV on and leans back in his seat, twisting the cap off his beer.

* * *

When the game breaks off for halftime, Benny goes to use the bathroom, and Dean gets up to grab a couple more beers. As he’s setting them down on the coffee table, there’s a knock on the door, so Dean goes to open it, wondering who would be looking for him on a Thursday night.

Dean pulls the door open, and there stands Balthazar, radiating so much fury that it’s suffocating. Dean barely has enough time to register the emotion—distantly, he hears Benny asking who’s at the door—before he’s being punched soundly in the jaw.

“What the fuck?” he says as Balthazar advances.

“I know what you did to Cas,” Balthazar says, low and accusing, and Dean was irritated by the punch, but now he’s angry.

“You say that as though I took advantage of him.”

“Didn’t you?”

“He wanted it.”

“He was _in heat_ , Dean! You can’t just—”

Balthazar starts toward Dean, but Benny’s suddenly between them, with his back to Dean. “Hey now, no need to spill blood over this,” he says.

“He touched what’s mine,” Balthazar says, and Dean can’t hold back a snarl in response.

“Cool it, Dean,” Benny says over his shoulder.

“Y’know, you say that he’s yours, but has he even let you knot him yet?” Even if Dean didn’t already know the answer, the warning growl that Balthazar lets out at these words would have been answer enough, and Dean says, “Yeah, thought so. Last night, he begged for it. He fucking—”

“Dean!” Benny interrupts, turning toward Dean in frustration.

Balthazar shoves past Benny, taking advantage of his distraction, and swings at Dean. But Dean dodges this time and retaliates with a blow of his own, fist connecting with Balthazar’s cheek.

Dean smells it before Benny or Balthazar—the cinnamon-sugar scent that means Cas is nearby, and it’s distracting enough that Balthazar’s next punch nearly hits Dean square in the nose. Dean leans back and grabs Balthazar’s fist, trying to twist his arm behind his back, but Benny grabs onto both of them by the shoulders, clearly trying to separate them.

“What did you think you were doing? Cas was in heat!” Balthazar growls.

Dean tightens his grip on Balthazar’s fist and twists as hard as he can, watching pain flicker on his opponent’s face. “Don’t you fucking accuse me of rape.”

“Why not? Cas couldn’t consent in that state.”

“He could still think clearly,” Dean says. “Or have you never seen an omega in heat? They’re not—it’s not like they turn into fucking _animals_ , damn it!”

And then Cas appears in the doorway, still _reeking_ of heat, and damn it, Dean gave him the day off to go get meds, didn’t he?

“Fuck,” Cas says, coming into the apartment and kicking the door shut before grabbing at Balthazar’s shoulder and tugging. Together, he and Benny manage to pull them apart, and Dean feels a vindictive sense of glee when Balthazar rotates his shoulder to work out the kinks in it.

But then Cas is in front of Balthazar, pressing their foreheads together, speaking quietly, and Dean tenses, vision flicking red as he fights down the impulse to drag Cas away and fuck him into next year.

“Y’know, I offered to take Cas home to you,” Dean says, and narrowly avoids an elbow to the ribs from Benny.

“Would it kill you to shut up?” Benny hisses, but Balthazar’s attention is on Dean now instead of Cas.

So Dean says, “He said no. He told me not to.”

“Dean, please,” Cas says.

“He begged me to take him right there.”

“Is it true?” Balthazar asks, eyes on Cas now.

Dean expects Cas to deny it, but really, he should know better by now. “He’s not lying,” Cas says.

Dean can smell Balthazar’s hurt, can barely pick it up over the overwhelming scent of Cas’s heat, but it’s definitely there, and it doesn’t make him feel as good as he’d thought it would.

“What does this mean, then?” Balthazar asks.

Benny’s shifting uncomfortably, and Dean really, _really_ wants to just snatch Cas and run, run to where there aren’t any other people around, where they can be alone together.

“Balthazar, let’s just go. Please,” Cas says.

“No. No, I—I need to know what you’re thinking. You said you were _over_ him,” Balthazar says, jabbing a finger in Dean’s direction.

“I am,” Cas replies, and wow, Dean never thought he could be hurt so badly by two tiny words.

“Look, maybe this conversation would be better held in private?” Benny says, fidgeting, and yeah, married and mated or not, an alpha can’t just _ignore_ an omega in heat. Dean knows Benny well enough to know that he would never touch Cas—or any other omega, for that matter—but he can’t help himself, instincts telling him that Benny is as much of a threat as Balthazar.

“Not yet,” Balthazar says. “I need Dean to know that Cas is mine, not his.”

“Fuck you,” Dean snarls. “You haven’t even—”

“I don’t _care_. I’m the one he’s engaged to, not you, and that’s a fact.”

“Yeah? It’s also a fact that—”

“Enough, the both of you,” Cas says, exasperated. “I’m not some, some _trophy_ that you get to take home if you win this argument—I’m not a prize that you can fight over. And if you continue to treat me like one, I swear, I won’t speak to either of you again.”

“Cas,” Balthazar says, and he sounds frustrated too, “you fucked another man. I really don’t think you have the moral high ground right now.”

“No, I don’t. But that still doesn’t make it okay for you to talk about me like some kind of _thing_ that you can own,” Cas responds.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Balthazar says.

“You meant it exactly that way,” Cas says. “Just—let’s get out of here.”

Balthazar nods, surrendering at least for the time being, and starts toward the door. He spares a moment to glare at Dean before yanking the door open and disappearing into the hall.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas says.

Without another word, he exits the room as well.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Dean shakes himself free of Benny’s hold. They’re both quiet as the tension in the room ebbs away, scents fading, and Dean becomes aware of the TV in the background, still playing halftime commercials.

“Do you want to finish watching the game?” Benny asks after a moment.

“No.”

“Do you need me to stay? Or should I call someone? Maybe Charlie?”

“I’m fine,” Dean says. “I just need to be alone.”

“Okay, then.  If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Benny nods and heads for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Caught off-guard, Dean says, “Tomorrow?”

“Yes. Tomorrow at work?” Benny says, frowning.

“Oh. Yeah, yeah, see you then,” Dean says, trailing his friend to the door.

Benny leaves, and Dean shuts and locks the door. He takes a deep breath before heading into the kitchen, debating whether or not getting drunk will be worth the headache he’ll have tomorrow morning. But damn it, he can’t show up to work with a hangover, especially after tonight’s fight with Balthazar, because Cas and Benny will know exactly why he was drinking.

Well, so much for that idea.

Dean goes back over to the couch and sits down, staring blankly at the television set but not really seeing anything on the screen.

_What did you think you were doing?_

_Cas couldn’t consent in that state_.

_He was in heat, Dean!_

Fuck. Balthazar’s words aren’t true—Dean’s _sure_ of it—yet they cycle around in his head, and he thinks he might go crazy.

Dean didn’t force anything on Cas. This—this wasn’t on him. They agreed on that, after the heat-fever had ebbed. Omegas are lucid during heats. They _are_. If Cas had wanted Balthazar, Dean would have put aside his own want and taken Cas home. He’d had every intention of doing it.

Cas was the one who had chosen to stay at the office with Dean.

No, he’d done more than choose. He’d told Dean that he _couldn’t_ take Balthazar’s knot, that even thinking about it made him want to puke.

So is this a physical thing?

Dean took an introductory course in human biology back when he was at Cal—breadth requirements kinda sucked ass at the time, but he’s gotta admit that he learned a lot of interesting things—so he knows the basics, knows that mates become strongly bonded to one another on a cellular level, that almost everyone else becomes pretty much unattractive and bland after bonding. But there have been cases of separated mates finding other partners, and cheating still happens, so Cas’s experience shouldn’t be biological.

Is it even possible for monogamy to be forced on omegas by their own biology?

Dean thinks about calling Adam again, but it’s one thing to ask his younger half-brother about heat medication. It’s another thing entirely to get into a talk about knotting. Awkward.

Then again, a conversation about knotting with anyone in his family is gonna be awkward as all hell, and he doesn’t exactly want to ask anyone outside the family either because yeah, still awkward.

He remembers that Mom and Dad spent a year apart, back when he was two or three years old. Dad got Adam’s mom pregnant sometime during that year, but this doesn’t help Dean at all because he already knows that he was perfectly capable of having sex after separating from Cas. He hasn’t knotted anyone other than Cas—could hardly even _think_ about it, but knotting isn’t necessary for pregnancy anyway.

Dean knows that Mom was also with someone else for a part of that year—she told him this herself, years ago—but he doesn’t know whether or not she ever—god, he can’t even think it. How the hell is he gonna ask about it if he can’t even think it?

But part of him—the greedy part that really hopes there’s a part of Cas that no one can take away from him—just needs to know.

And that’s how he finds himself turning off the TV, leaning back on the couch, and pressing his phone to his ear, listening to the dial tone.

“Hey, Dean,” Mom says when she picks up.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“I’m a lot better, now. Thank you for asking.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“So, what’s this about? Are you coming to me for advice because you finally met someone?” Mom asks.

“No, nothing like that,” Dean answers.

“Ah well, can’t blame me for hoping.”

“I actually wanted to ask you about… about the time that you spent away from Dad,” Dean says. “How uh, how was it?”

“It was… conflicting,” Mom replies. “There was relief at being away from him at last, but then I really wanted to be back with him. Oh, it was a mess—why do you think so few mated couples separate? They can’t bear to be apart from one another.”

“Well no, I get that. I just—I wanted to ask…” Dean pauses here, trying to phrase his query so that it’ll be hopefully less awkward. “I wanted to—I mean, I get the emotional aspect. But I’m talking physically—”

“Did you call me to ask about sex, Dean?” Mom asks, amusement loud and clear in her voice.

“I’m asking about biology, okay?” Dean says, cheeks coloring.

“Potato, potahto.”

“Did you seriously just—” Dean shakes his head. “Never mind. Can we stay on point here?”

“Sure, sure. Ask away, hon.”

“During the year that you and Dad separated, you said you saw someone else for a while,” Dean says, looking for confirmation.

“I did.”

“I’m assuming that you guys weren’t—that you uh, didn’t abstain?”

Mom laughs. “Dean, I’m your mother. You don’t have to avoid ‘the S word’ with me.”

“Hey, it’s weird to be talking about this with you, okay? Give me a break,” Dean says, hiding his face behind his free hand even though Mom can’t see him.

“All right, all right. Yes, Fred and I were sexually active. Why on _earth_ would you be interested in that?”

“No, it’s just—I mean—was he an alpha?”

“What’s this about, Dean?”

“Nothing. I uh…”

“Don’t lie to me, young man,” Mom says. “You wouldn’t have called if it weren’t something important. Is this about Cas?”

“No,” Dean lies reflexively.

“Oh, really? Because if you’re thinking about your options as a once-mated but single alpha, your father is the one you should be calling. Besides, I thought you’d already dated that woman—Lisa.”

Dean sighs resignedly. “Okay, yes, it’s about Cas.”

“How is he?”

“He’s okay.”

They both fall silent, and Dean really isn’t sure where to go from here. Does he just ask, straight out?

“Did something happen between the two of you?” Mom asks carefully.

“No. It’s just—he told me something, and it got me thinking about—about I don’t know, about me and him and our relationship.”

After a brief pause, Mom asks, “What did he tell you?”

“He said that he uh, that he couldn’t—that he _hasn’t_ taken anyone else’s knot before,” Dean blurts out. Mom starts to say something, but Dean continues, “He said it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. It was because he couldn’t. Is that something that you… that you had to deal with?”

_There_. It’s out. He’s said it, asked his question, doesn’t have to have it weighing on his mind anymore. Mom doesn’t answer immediately, but Dean’s willing to give her time to think it over.

“For a while, yes. I had that problem for the first five months or so, but after that, it was fine,” Mom answers eventually. “Do you mean—did Cas tell you this recently?”

“Yeah. Is there any reason why it would last so long?”

“Well, I saw a doctor back in the day, when I first realized that it was a problem for me, and he said that he couldn’t predict how long it would last. It depends on the nature of the break, and the… the strength of the connection between the partners,” Mom says. “So for Cas to still have this problem, even after all these years of separation, means that you two are still too emotionally connected to each other—that you have a more profound bond than most.”

That can’t be possible, Dean thinks. Sure, he’s still very attached to Cas, but he’s pretty damn sure that it’s been one-sided. There’s no way Cas would have still _wanted_ him after everything— _despite_ everything—for all this time. They were so much to each other, and Dean was just starting to think that maybe if they worked at it, they could go back to something like the way they were, but to say that their bond is still so strong after all these years is crazy, isn’t it?

“Dean, you should have said something if you were having so much trouble,” Mom says quietly. “If Cas is so strongly affected, you must have had a hard time as well.”

“I’ve been fine,” Dean says. “There isn’t much you could’ve done for me, anyway.”

“Regardless, we could have talked about this, at least,” Mom says. “So… what are you planning to do about Cas?”

“I really don’t know. I don’t know what I _can_ do,” Dean answers.

“If he was willing to tell you, then you have a chance,” Mom says. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you not to strong-arm him into anything, but you can always try being honest with him. Tell him how you feel, and then let him make his own decision. That’s as much as you can do.”

The advice is so familiar, almost identical to what she’d told him when he fucked up years ago, and fuck, maybe he _should_ have done that, instead of convincing himself that Cas would be better off without him.

“Dean?”

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘m still here.”

“You’re a grown man—you’re free to make your own decisions. I just wish…” she sighs. “You know all I want is to see you happy. But I’ll support whatever your final choice is.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

Dean doesn’t have any energy in him to protest the nickname, just lets out a soft chuckle. “I’ll call you again sometime.”

“You sure you don’t want to speak with your father?”

“I’m sure. Bye.”

“Bye, Dean.”

* * *

Dean heads down the hall toward his and Cas’s joint office the next morning, dread like a lead weight at the bottom of his stomach. He reaches the door way too soon and hesitates for a moment before pushing it open and entering.

Cas looks up from his desk. “Good morning,” he says.

The room smells like it usually does, no stronger scents than usual, and Dean closes the door. “I take it you got some new heat suppressants,” he says.

“Yes. They appear to be working fine. Thank you.”

Dean’s coffee cup is on the edge of Cas’s desk, and he walks over to pick it up. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Cas replies. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. Balthazar shouldn’t have behaved like that yesterday.”

“How’d he find out, anyway?” Dean asks.

“I told him.”

It takes a second for Dean to realize that Cas actually means it. “You _told_ —”

“Yes, because we don’t keep secrets from one another,” Cas interrupts.

Jealousy rears its ugly head at this, and Dean takes a sip from his coffee to give himself an excuse not to respond because he’s sure he won’t have anything good to say. Finally, he says, “What did he—I mean, how did he react?”

“I believe you saw that already,” Cas says. “He stormed out of my apartment and headed straight for yours. I had to reassure Ariel that everything was all right and that I’d be right back—couldn’t just leave like that.”

Dean nods. He’s got an opening now, he knows. He has Cas’s attention, can tell him what he’s feeling, can ask to start over. But he just can’t find the words. Then Cas reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a white, unmarked envelope. He gets to his feet and holds it out toward Dean.

“What is this?” Dean asks.

“It’s my letter of resignation,” Cas says. “Consider this my two week notice.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m quitting.”

“Why? Is it because of what happened on Wednesday? Or—damn it, are you doing this because Balthazar—”

“It was my idea,” Cas cuts in. “It’s just too messy to continue to work here, in close proximity to you. I thought it would be fine, but biology clearly isn’t on our side. It’d be better for all of us if we could go back to the way things were before I got this job.”

“Cas—”

“Please take it,” Cas says, leaning forward a little to bring the letter closer to Dean.

“You don’t have to quit, Cas.”

“No, but I want to,” Cas says, but he can’t meet Dean’s eyes.

Dean’s jaw clenches, and he looks down at the envelope. If Cas wants to quit, Dean can’t exactly force him to stay. But the only scent he can pick up in the room is reluctance, and god, if that means Balthazar is forcing Cas to quit—

But Cas is stubborn. Balthazar wouldn’t be able to force him to do something if he didn’t want to. His reluctance could just be because he doesn’t want to give up such a hard-earned position. Dean tries to catch Cas’s gaze, but his eyes remain firmly fixed on the ground.

“Fine,” Dean says, setting down his briefcase and accepting the letter. “I’ll bring it up to Adler at the end of the day.”

“Actually, you have a meeting with him after lunch so you can probably hand it over then,” Cas says, glancing at the schedule on his desk. “He called just as I got in this morning and said it was a pressing matter but that he would be in meetings all morning, up until lunch.”

“Okay,” Dean says. He snaps Cas’s letter between two fingers on his cup-holding hand and picks up his case again. As he does so, Cas crosses his office to open the door for him. “Thanks, Cas.”

Cas only nods in response and waits for him to pass before closing it again. Dean goes to his desk and puts down the mug and his briefcase before sitting down, letter still in hand. He gets his letter-opener and presses the tip under the edge of the flap, but he stops before he can exert any pressure.

He’ll leave it to Adler to read this damn thing.

* * *

This is an Ariel weekend, so Dean stops by after work to pick her up from Cas’s apartment. She and Cas are standing down by the curb when he pulls up, which is probably just an extra measure to make sure Dean doesn’t run into Balthazar.

As Ariel gets into the car, Dean counts the windows to Cas’s apartment and finds that Balthazar is visible from the window, watching them. So Dean doesn’t stay long, just waits until Ariel is buckled up before driving away.

By the time they get home, Ariel’s already gotten Dean to agree to a minimum of three games of Candy Land and five games of Snakes and Ladders, because that’s apparently her new favorite thing. Dinner is a huge pot of spaghetti and meatballs because Dean’s feeling a little lazy, and Ariel likes Italian food anyway.

After dinner, Dean does the dishes while Ariel watches some cartoon program that he doesn’t recognize. When everything’s clean and put in the dish rack to dry, Dean sits down at the kitchen table and gets his laptop out. The meeting with Adler had been about that SVP position he’d mentioned last week, and there’s some paperwork Dean needs to fill in and print out.

Adler hadn’t said anything when Dean handed him Cas’s letter of resignation, just asked if Dean would like a new assistant. Dean had said that he’d think about it.

“Hey, Daddy?” Ariel says, and Dean looks up to find that she’s peering at him over the back of the couch.

“Yeah?” he prompts when she only stares at him for a long moment.

She wrinkles her nose before climbing off the couch and running around it to come over to the kitchen table. Dean puts down his pen and scoots his chair back a little to give her enough room to climb into his lap, and he squeezes her tight when she’s situated comfortably.

“What is it, hmm?” he asks. “You want me to turn the TV off?”

“Are you sad?” Ariel asks, out of nowhere, and Dean frowns.

“What?”

“Are you sad?” Ariel repeats, and okay, apparently Dean didn’t hear wrong.

“No.”

Ariel pouts up at him. “Well, I think you’re sad,” she says. “Is it because Daddy is marrying—marrying Uncle Baltasah and not you?”

“Yeah,” Dean admits, relieved that she isn’t calling Balthazar her dad anymore. “Yeah, it is, baby. But it’s okay, because you’ll still be my baby even if Daddy isn’t with me, right?”

She continues to look up at him, blue eyes wide and sad, and says, “I will! But I don’t want you to be sad.”

“Yeah well, there are some things in life that you want, but you can’t have them,” Dean says quietly.

“Even if I don’t want them for myself?” Ariel asks. “Daddy always said that selfishness is good because it means you want things for other people instead of you.”

Dean smiles. “You mean selflessness, kiddo?”

“That’s what I _said_!” Ariel insists, petulant.

“Well, to answer your question, yes,” Dean says. “Sometimes you don’t get what you want, even if you want it for someone else.”

Ariel’s pout grows even more pronounced. “But when you’re sad, I’m sad.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t say that. Grownups think too much, and that’s why we’re so serious all the time,” Dean says. “You’re still a kid. You should be happy.”

“But if you… I’ll be sad for you so that you can be happy, Daddy.”

“Aw,” Dean says, smiling again. “If it worked that way, I’d take you up on it in a heartbeat, believe me. But that’s not the way these things work. If you want to help me be happy, you’ve gotta be happy, too, or you’ll just make me sadder than ever. And you don’t want that, do you?”

Ariel shakes her head seriously and says, “No! I want you to be happy.”

“Okay. Smile for me, then.”

The corners of Ariel’s lips twitch, like she’s trying, but she still looks so distressed that Dean’s heart aches. So he shifts his grip on her, tickling her middle, and she squeals, breaking into giggles and squirming in his lap.

Eventually she breaks away, shouting about how Dean’s a horrible daddy, and runs off to go back to her cartoon. But before she goes out of sight behind the couch, Dean catches a glimpse of her peeking back at him, expression somber, and he can’t help but think that she’s way too grown-up for her age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter after this, plus an epilogue. Meep!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a teensy bit worried that this is gonna be a disappointing ending, gah. But as promised, the epilogue will be up in a few days, as long as I still have internet access.

Dean’s never thought of himself as a pushover before, but god, he is helpless when it comes to saying no to Ariel. He hasn’t ever been interested in wizards or magic, but one pouty look from that kid, and he finds himself going through the collection of books from Cas and picking out the _Chamber of Secrets_.

They’ve only just gotten to meet Dobby the house-elf—which, how the hell did JK Rowling come up with those, and where can he get one?—when there’s a knock on the front door.

“Who is that?” Ariel asks.

“I don’t know,” Dean answers—he isn’t expecting anyone. He gets up off the couch and goes to answer the door. “Well if it isn’t the Three Stooges,” he says when he sees who’s on the other side.

“Psh, we’re totally the Three Muskateers,” Charlie bats back, marching into the apartment.

“Charlie!” Ariel shouts, running over for a hug as Garth and Benny enter.

“I didn’t know you played favorites, Ariel,” Garth says, squatting down and spreading his arms, wiggling his fingers to get Ariel to go to him next.

“How’d you get into the building?” Dean asks.

“Followed someone in,” Benny answers. “We knew Ariel was gonna be here, so we figured we’d stop by.”

“Yep!” Charlie agrees, straightening to let Garth have his hug. “That and we just haven’t hung out for a while.” Then she snatches Dean’s book from his hand and says, “Dude, you’re finally reading _Harry Potter_?”

“Yeah, thanks to this little squirt,” Dean says, scooping Ariel up into his arms.

“That’s my girl!” Charlie says, holding her hand up for a fist bump. Ariel recognizes the gesture and bumps her fist against Charlie’s with a giggle. “Okay, so you wanna keep reading? I bet I’ll be better at it than your daddy. I’ll even do voices.”

“Ooh, yes!” Ariel says.

“Okay! Let’s move,” Charlie says, heading toward the couch.

Dean takes one step, but Ariel’s arm flies out to fist in the material of Benny’s jacket, and Dean looks at her, bemused. “I think you’re forgetting something,” he says to Benny.

Benny feigns confusion. “What? What am I forgetting?”

“Uncle Benny,” Ariel whines, tugging at his jacket.

“Say please.”

“Pleeeease,” Ariel says, drawing out the word, and Benny chuckles and produces a bag of Ruffles.

Charlie mock-gasps from her seat on the coffee table. “How dare you! Bribing your way into our little princess’s favor. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Benny doesn’t bother with a response, just crosses the room to join Garth on the couch. Dean follows and sits down between them with Ariel on his lap.

“Okay, any idea what page you were on?” Charlie asks.

“No clue. We just got to Bobby the house-elf,” Dean says.

“Dobby!” Charlie, Garth, and Ariel correct him at once, and Dean holds his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay, _Dobby_. Sorry, first timer over here.”

“Well, this is good,” Charlie says, flipping through to find the right page. “I get to do my Uncle Vernon voice.”

“I can’t wait,” Benny says with a hint of sarcasm.

Charlie just grins. “You’re gonna love it.”

* * *

Ariel gets sleepy around three o’clock, so Dean carries her into her bedroom and shuts the door to let her nap in peace. When he gets back out, Garth is returning from the kitchen with a six-pack of beer. Charlie is on her feet, stretching, and Benny is still knocked out on the couch.

“Hey,” Charlie says, nudging Benny’s foot with hers.

“Mm. We done readin’ yet?” Benny asks, eyes still closed.

“I can’t believe you fell asleep before Ariel,” Charlie says.

“Well forgive me for getting bored. This ain’t exactly my kind of thing,” Benny says, sitting up straight and stretching his arms out to either side.

Garth sets the six-pack down on the coffee table and says, “Hey, _Harry Potter_ is the shit, so don’t rag on it. What did you think, Dean?”

“It wasn’t bad,” Dean answers.

“Oh, well don’t get _too_ enthusiastic,” Charlie says sarcastically, sitting back down on the coffee table and grabbing two bottles of beer. She passes them off to Garth and Benny and hands a third to Dean when he resumes his seat.

“So, apparently Cas gave you his two week notice,” Garth says.

Dean groans. “How do you know that?”

“Gilda told me,” Charlie says, and who the hell is Gilda? “We went on a date last night,” Charlie continues. “Did you guys know she’s a dancer? Gorgeous _and_ talented, god.”

“Stay on point, Charlie,” Benny chides her.

“Oh, you mean Adler’s secretary,” Dean says, making the connection a little late.

“Duh,” Charlie responds, reaching out to smack Dean’s forehead.

“Hey! I never refer to her by her first name,” Dean says defensively.

“I thought you were on a first-name basis with like, all the people on the top floor. Except Zachariah,” Charlie says.

“Not with Crowley,” Dean points out.

Garth frowns. “I thought Crowley _was_ his first name.”

“No, pretty sure it’s his last name,” Dean says.

“Then what’s his first name?” Garth asks.

“I have no clue,” Dean realizes—he’s never actually given it any thought before.

“Wait, I have his business card,” Charlie says, getting her wallet out and digging through it.

Benny sighs long-sufferingly. “This can wait, y’know.”

“Here it is!” Charlie says, whipping a card out triumphantly. But her face falls when she reads it, and she turns it around to reveal that where the name should be, only the single word, _CROWLEY_ , is printed in big, bold lettering.

“Looks like it’ll remain a mystery,” Garth says.

“Looks like,” Dean agrees.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Benny says, “is there anything you’d like to tell us that might have to do with Cas quitting his job?” He asks the question a bit pointedly, and Dean knows that he’s talking about Cas going into heat in the office. But god, Dean’s not about to share _that_ with the class.

“C’mon, guys, have mercy,” he says.

“Hey, I went to a lot of trouble to pick a good assistant for you. I think you owe me at least a tiny bit of an explanation,” Charlie says. “Besides, if you need a new assistant, I’m gonna be the one who has a shit-ton of screening to do. Again.”

“If you want me to take over for you, just say the word,” Benny says.

“Oh, like you’d have the patience for all those interviews.”

“Funny. Of the two of us, _you_ seem to be the impatient one.”

“Now, now. Play nicely, you two,” Garth says.

“ _He_ started—you know what, never mind. Dean, talk to us. Why is Cas quitting?” Charlie asks.

“I don’t know. It was his decision, not mine,” Dean says.

“Didn’t you read his letter of resignation? There should have been a reason,” Benny says.

“No. I just handed it over to Adler.”

“Why didn’t you read it?” Charlie asks.

“There’s no rule saying that I have to, is there?”

“Well no, but—”

“I didn’t want to, okay?”

It’s silent for a long moment, and Dean realizes belatedly that he’d kinda raised his voice unnecessarily. But he’s not about to apologize for it and make it seem like he lost control, because they’d only use it as an argument to convince him to talk.

“Are you okay?” Garth asks as Charlie says, “There’s gotta be something we can do.”

“You know, there actually is,” Dean says, looking back and forth between his friends—Garth seems surprised, Charlie eager, and Benny skeptical. “You can leave me alone and let me handle my own problem.”

Charlie sighs. “Fine, have it your way. But I’m totally stopping by to talk to Cas on Monday.”

“Don’t harass him, all right? He doesn’t need that shit.”

“I just want to talk to him, gosh. You don’t have to get so protective,” Charlie says.

“I’m not.”

“Protective _and_ in denial about it. Typical,” Charlie comments.

“Shut your mouth. Do you guys want to be invited to dinner or not?”

“Oh my god, are you actually cooking today?” Charlie says, and wow, is it really that easy to distract her? No—it’s far more likely that this is her way of being merciful and letting Dean off the hook.

So Dean gets to his feet and says, “Let me take a look at what’s in the fridge.” He’s pretty sure he has a couple slabs of meat in there, but the trouble is that he might not have enough time to marinate them. He could just go with burgers—he does have ground beef for patties…

“If you need anything, we could definitely make a grocery run,” Garth says. “Or two. I haven’t had your cooking in way too long.”

Dean laughs and goes toward the kitchen. “I’ll get back to you guys on that. Any requests, while I’m thinking about it?”

* * *

On Monday morning, Dean gets in and is surprised to see that Cas isn’t in the office yet. He enters his own office and is surprised for a second time, this time at finding the seat in front of his desk occupied—someone is waiting for him. The visitor stands and turns around at the sound of the door closing, and Dean recognizes him as one of Crowley’s assistants.

“Mr. Winchester.”

“Yeah, yeah, Crowley wants to see me. Let me just put my stuff down,” Dean says, going behind his desk to set down his briefcase. That done, he exits the room, Crowley’s assistant tailing after him. “Did he tell you what this was about?”

“No, sir.”

Well, that’s to be expected. Crowley doesn’t share information lightly.

They reach his office a few minutes later, and when Dean knocks, Crowley says, “Come in.” He enters the room as Crowley dismisses his other assistant with a quiet, “That’ll be all, Howley.” The assistant leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

“Howley?” Dean says, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes. Growley and Howley. I liked the sound of it,” Crowley says with an amused smile. “Sit.”

Dean goes over to the chair in front of Crowley’s desk and takes a seat. As he does, Crowley opens a drawer and produces a plain white envelope that has clearly been opened before. He places it on top of the desk and slides it toward Dean.

“You recognize this, I expect,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Castiel’s letter of resignation,” Crowley confirms.

“Yeah. What is it doing here?”

“Well, to put it plainly, it’s been denied.”

“Den— _denied?_ ” Dean repeats, almost unsure whether he’s heard correctly. “I didn’t think that was allowed. Denied by whom?”

“By me, you twit,” Crowley says.

“Okay… I thought you were ready to do away with him. In fact, weren’t you prepared to use firing Cas as blackmail to make sure I did my job?” Dean says.

“Well, yes. But the truth is, your productivity has increased remarkably since you and your trusty assistant got used to your sea legs, and I find myself reluctant to see that little worker bee go. He certainly brightens _your_ day, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to take this letter back downstairs and use your renowned powers of persuasion so that we can keep Castiel at Sandover.”

“But he wants to quit.”

Crowley lets out a long sigh. “Oh, Dean, for such a clever man with _such_ a brilliant mind for problem-solving, you really can be an idiot. Yes, of _course_ he wants to quit—that’s what the letter says. What I want you to do is go downstairs and make it so that he _doesn’t_ want to quit. Is that clear enough, or do I need to write it in block letters and tape it to your forehead?”

“What if I can’t persuade him?” Dean asks.

“You have a big brain. Use it,” Crowley replies. “Seduce him if you have to. If word along the grapevine is to be believed—and it usually is—he’s been panting after your knot anyway. So just make, him, _stay_.”

Dean stiffens in his seat, ignoring Crowley’s comment about the grapevine because he’s probably just fishing, trying to get something he can use out of Dean. If so, he’ll have to try a little harder than _that_. “I’ll talk to him. That’s all,” Dean says resolutely, meeting Crowley’s eyes to show him that he won’t budge on this. “If he still wants to leave, you’re going to let him leave. Got it?”

“Are you bargaining with me?”

“No. I’m telling you what I’m gonna do,” Dean says, picking up the envelope.

“Now listen here,” Crowley says. “Honestly, you are very young—maybe _too_ young—to be moving up to that position as Senior Vice President. You know why the board agreed on it? Because I wanted them to. I showed them what you accomplished and promised even more from a position of more power, and they were impressed. But you and Castiel are being promoted as a unit. One won’t go without the other. Keep that in mind during your _talk_.”

“Fine. If that was all, I’m gonna go,” Dean says, getting to his feet.

“Run along, now. I’ll be waiting for your good news.”

Dean takes the stairs down to give himself a bit more time to think.  He doesn’t _have_ to do as Crowley says, and even if he’s not promoted to SVP now, he’ll still have opportunities in the future. Besides, he’d wanted to talk to Cas about their relationship sometime today or tomorrow, and that’s a hell of a lot more important than a single promotion.

Back on his floor, he waves hello at Benny, who’s just getting in, before going into Cas’s office. Cas is on the phone with someone, and Dean takes it as an excuse to put off their conversation for later, because yeah, he’s sort of a wimp.

So he passes by Cas’s desk with a quick wave and gets a nod of acknowledgement, and then he slips into the safety of his own office.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cas walks into Dean’s office unannounced and closes the door behind him with a quiet click. Dean finishes typing the sentence that he’s currently on and looks up. “Mornin’,” he says.

“Good morning,” Cas replies, polite as ever. And then he says, “I had an interesting conversation with Ariel last night, after you dropped her off.”

“Yeah? She’s uh, she’s really smart, for her age,” Dean says, rummaging around in one of his desk drawers for a pen because he needs to take down a few numbers on a sticky note.

“Apparently, you’re sad, so I should marry you instead of Balthazar,” Cas says, and Dean freezes because he hadn’t even realized that Ariel would come to that conclusion. She’d acted normal for the rest of the weekend, and by the time he dropped her off last night, he would have been certain that she’d forgotten about the whole conversation, if he’d remembered it himself. Cas continues, “Did you tell her to say that?”

“What—no! Of course not!”

“Right. Because you wouldn’t do something like that,” Cas says.

“I wouldn’t,” Dean says firmly. And then, because things have gotten to the point where he may as well lay all his cards on the table—and because he’s just really fucking tired at this point, he says, “Look, Cas, it’s—it’s your life. And maybe this won’t change how you feel at all, but I… love you.” Cas goes very still, but Dean can’t stop now, so he goes on, “I love you, and you—aw, shit—you _belong_ with me, okay? Because you still have feelings for me too—I _know_ it.”

Cas’s eyes are averted, and when he looks up at Dean, he says, “Maybe you’re right,” and Dean wants to rejoice, but he registers the resigned tone of Cas’s voice, knows that that isn’t all he’s gonna say. Sure enough, Cas continues, “And maybe I do have feelings for you. But sometimes, that just isn’t enough. I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean almost gives up right then, but fuck, he deserves a better ending than this. _Cas_ deserves better than this. So he says, “How can that not be enough? I’ve grown up. I wouldn’t—you’ve gotta know I could never do anything like that to you again.”

“I know.”

“You _know_ , and you still can’t—what the hell is the problem, then?”

“The problem is that I’ve made a commitment to Balthazar. I’m not just going to—”

“But are you and Balthazar gonna be happy together?”

“We _are_ happy.”

“ _Are_ you?” Dean challenges, standing up so that he and Cas are at eye level with each other. “From what I saw last Thursday, you two are still a ways away from being a happy couple. And even if you _are_ happy now, are you sure you’re not gonna resent him five years down the line? Ten years? Are you sure _he_ won’t resent _you?_ ”

“Dean, please don’t—”

“Don’t what? Don’t keep asking questions that you can’t answer? Because Cas, if you can’t answer these questions, how can you marry him?” Dean demands, rounding his desk to move toward Cas.

“I can’t just—”

Cas starts backing away, but Dean grabs his arm to keep him here and says, “Yes, you can. Do you think he’ll be happy, knowing that you still feel the way that you do about me?”

“I was fine before I started working here, and I’ll be fine again when I leave,” Cas says, head down.

“Damn it, Cas, don’t lie to yourself, not about this. It’s been six fucking years, and you still can’t even think about taking another knot. Do you know what that means? It means that in all likelihood, you could give us another six years, and it’s still— _we’re_ still—gonna feel just like this.”

Cas’s eyes dart pretty much anywhere in the room to avoid Dean’s gaze as he says, “We could leave Ohio. We could go anywhere else.”

Dean nearly growls in frustration and shakes Cas by the shoulders. “ _No_. Don’t you get it? I’m not—I don’t want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay, right here, with me. _Please_. I just—”

Dean takes a deep breath to cool down a little, let the anger in his chest settle. He tries to catch Cas’s gaze, but Cas keeps his head down, and finally Dean gives up and just speaks to the top of his head.

“Cas, do you know when the last time I managed to get a full night’s sleep was? It was the Saturday before last, when you brought Ariel over and stayed for practically the whole day, because the entire apartment smelled like you and it was—god, it was like you were still there even after you left,” Dean says, remembering how _whole_ he’d felt. How he’d never felt so at home in his own apartment before. “Do you know when the last time was, before that?”

“New York,” Cas answers before Dean can, voice shaky, and when he finally lifts his head to meet Dean’s gaze, his eyes are watery. His lips twitch upwards at the corners, and he whispers, “Me, too.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Dean practically snarls, yanking Cas in and bringing their mouths together.

Their teeth clack, and Dean’s nose bumps Cas’s cheek kinda hard, but god, he doesn’t _care_ , because Cas is kissing him right back, hands flying up to grip at the back of Dean’s jacket. It’s a mess of tongues and teeth, and Cas definitely lets out a small moan when Dean shoves his tongue into his mouth and licks at the backs of his teeth.

Cas’s hands slide up and card through Dean’s hair, and he can’t help the low, instinctive rumble in his chest when Cas scratches at his scalp. Dean pushes at Cas’s jacket, shoves it off over his shoulders because it’s too goddamn in the way, and pulls Cas close again, because any space between them is wrong, unbearable, and he won’t stand for it.

Dean kisses Cas like he’s starving, pressing forward until Cas’s back hits the wall and then leaning in some more. Cas takes it all, _revels_ in it if his smell is anything to go by, and spreads his legs slightly, enticing Dean to come even closer. He sucks on Dean’s lips, first upper and then lower, before Dean tips his head forward again with a low growl, licking his way back into that sweet mouth.

Finally, they break apart for air, and somehow one of Dean’s hands has made it up the back of Cas’s shirt while the other is fisted in Cas’s hair, holding his head in place, and holy shit, Dean’s made an absolute _wreck_ of Cas—tie loose, shirt un-tucked and partly unbuttoned, lips swollen and hair sticking up all over.

They stare at each other, breathless, pupils blown, and god, Cas looks like he’s _glowing_.

Dean’s got no clue what’s gonna happen next, doesn’t know what they’re gonna do about Balthazar, about Ariel, about the fact that they work together in a place where workplace romances are frowned upon, about telling their respective families about… about anything that’s happened between them, but right here, right now, none of it is important. None of it _matters_.

Something inside Dean has clicked into place, something that’s been missing for far too long, and all he knows is that after all this time, he and Cas are finally— _finally_ —on the same page.

“I love you,” Dean says, because he’s got nothing else left to say.

Cas, the little shit, just smiles and says, “I know.”


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few loose ends from the last chapter will be covered here, but it won't be extremely detailed (apologies!). This last part is basically fluffy and self-indulgent because I wanted it to be, haha xD
> 
> Thank you so very much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this after all the angst in this fic.

“Is that the last one?”

“I believe so,” Cas says, looking around.

“Thank _god_ ,” Dean says, shoving the front door closed and sitting down on the nearest box. “How the hell did you manage to accumulate so much stuff in your tiny little apartment?”

“It never seems like a lot until it’s all packed up,” Cas replies. With a sigh, he moves toward the box nearest him with a pair of scissors.

“Hey, no, come here,” Dean says, gesturing for Cas to come closer.

“I need to unpack.”

“It’s late. You can start tomorrow,” Dean says, holding his arms out.

Cas frowns at him but puts down the scissors and walks over to Dean, brow furrowed. “I’d like to be finished before we leave for Lawrence,” he says. “I’d hate to come back from our holiday and have more work to do at home.”

“Yeah well, we’ve still got a week, okay? So just relax. I’ll help you,” Dean says, grabbing Cas’s wrists to pull his hands into his lap.

“You should get off that box. I don’t even know what’s in it.”

“You’re a bossy little thing, aren’t you?” Dean says. He stands and lets go of Cas’s wrists, freeing his hands so that he can slide them around Cas’s waist instead, pulling him closer.

“Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“Ariel could come out of her room at any minute.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“ _Dean_.”

“No, I mean it. All she’d see is a perfectly happy couple,” Dean says, pressing a kiss to Cas’s cheek.

“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Cas says.

“That’s because I am,” Dean says.

“Is that so?” Cas says, smiling.

Dean doesn’t bother with a verbal response, leaning in to kiss the smile right off Cas’s lips. It’s just as good as it always is, and it’s been maybe three months since Dean and Cas had their breakthrough, but he still can’t believe he gets to have this, gets to have _Cas_.

Pretty much right after their conversation, Cas had gone to go find Balthazar and end things with him. He didn’t take it well, but he’d also said that he’d seen it coming, had wanted to marry Cas before things got to that point because he’d been almost positive that Cas wouldn’t divorce him. The last time Dean saw him was maybe two months ago—he’d been at Cas’s place to pick up a few things he’d left there because he was planning on a permanent move out of Akron.

“Dean,” Cas says, soft, and Dean blinks a few times, focusing on the concerned expression on his mate’s face, and god, he’s never gonna get tired of being allowed to call him that. Cas, Dean’s mate. _Dean’s_.

“I’m fine,” Dean says, answering Cas’s unasked question. “Why don’t you go check on Ariel? She’s been quiet for a suspiciously long time.”

Cas laughs. “Come with me.”

Dean nods and follows Cas through the maze of boxes filling his living room and into the hallway that leads to Ariel’s bedroom. The door’s open, but Cas knocks lightly anyway before entering.

Ariel is sprawled on top of her baby blue sheets, eyes closed and mouth open, chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths. Dean can’t help but smile at the sight, the alpha inside him pleased at the thought that this is Ariel’s home now—her _only_ home, as it should have been from the beginning.

Cas walks over to the bed and tugs gently at the sheet, looking pointedly at Dean. Getting his point, Dean follows him over and gingerly lifts Ariel from the bed. She shifts to snuggle into his chest, small hands fisting in the material of his t-shirt, but doesn’t seem to wake.

“Shouldn’t she take a bath before going to bed?” Dean asks in a low voice.

“If she’s that tired, we should let her sleep,” Cas answers, pulling the covers back and pointing at the bed. “She can bathe tomorrow morning.”

Dean sets Ariel down, but when he goes to straighten up again, her hands remain stubbornly attached to his shirt. “Uh—Cas, a little help here?” Dean says.

Cas chuckles and steps closer, reaching down to coax Ariel’s hands out of fists. It takes maybe a minute, but eventually Ariel relinquishes her hold on Dean’s t-shirt and curls up on her side. Dean drags the covers up and over her, and then he backs up a step so that he can loop an arm around Cas’s waist, resting a hand on his hip.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Cas says quietly.

“Of course she is,” Dean answers. “She looks like you.”

“Flatterer,” Cas says. “Come on. We should let her sleep in peace.”

They exit the room, and Dean pulls the door closed behind them. “So, what now?” he asks as they head back toward the living room.

Cas looks around at the boxes filling the room and sighs. “Shower and sleep?”

“Yeah? I thought you wanted to start unpacking tonight.”

“I have more interesting plans for tonight,” Cas says.

Dean raises one eyebrow, putting on a confused expression. “What could possibly be interesting about showering and sleeping?”

Cas turns away from Dean and backs up into him, slotting his ass right into the cradle of Dean’s hips, and Dean’s hardly had a moment to react before Cas is slipping away from him and down the hall, smiling coyly over his shoulder. “Why don’t you come get me, alpha, and I’ll show you?”

A low rumble of pleasure bursts out of Dean’s throat before he can think to stop it, the alpha in him undeniably excited at the prospect of a chase, no matter how short. He catches up to Cas in the bathroom, snatches him by the collar, and kicks the door shut before spinning to pin him up against it. The scent of Cas’s slick wafts up to Dean’s nose, and he licks his lips, letting the hunger show in his eyes.

“So, weren’t you going to show me something?” Dean murmurs, leaning close to lick at the back of Cas’s ear, kissing his way down the side of Cas’s neck and back to swirl his tongue around the first knob of Cas’s spine.

“Hmm, yes,” Cas answers.

Dean’s about to speak when Cas shoves his sweats down past the curve of his ass and presses his hips backwards. Dean looks down— _has_ to when Cas is presenting so prettily for him—and groans at the sight of Cas’s hands spreading his cheeks apart, showing off his glistening little hole.

“Fuck,” Dean hisses, releasing Cas’s shoulders and dropping to his knees. “I’m going to make you beg, gonna make you _scream_.”

Without waiting for a response, Dean leans in, hands on Cas’s hips, and laps up the slick that’s just starting to leak from Cas’s hole. Cas makes a shocked, pleased noise and rolls his hips back into the contact. Cas tastes amazing, cinnamon-sugar sweetness that Dean could lose himself in for hours.

Dean ignores his own growing arousal, choosing instead to shove his tongue into Cas and lick away any traces of slick that he finds. Then he pulls his tongue out, seals his lips around Cas’s entrance, and _sucks_. He’s rewarded with a fresh wave of syrupy liquid, accompanied by Cas’s soft cries, bitten back for Ariel’s sake, no doubt.

“St-stop teasing me,” Cas grits out even as Dean sucks harder, coaxing his omega’s body to produce more lubricant for him. “Dean, puh-please—”

But Cas is leaking profusely, coating Dean’s tongue, and how the hell is Dean supposed to stop when he’s only just gotten started? He pulls back slightly and easily fits two fingers into Cas’s hole, leaning back in to lick up the slick that his fingers squeeze out.

“ _Dean_.”

“Thought you wanted to shower,” Dean says, thrusting his fingers in and out gently. “I won’t knot you in the shower—horrible for the knees.”

“Fuck the shower, then,” Cas manages through clenched teeth. “I need—need your knot.”

This is what Dean’s been waiting for. So he forces himself to pull back, drawing his fingers out as well. Cas whimpers at the loss, and Dean places a hand at the small of his back to soothe him as he pulls his sweats back up.

“Bedroom,” Dean says, and Cas fumbles with the door handle, wrenching the door open and stumbling out into the hallway.

They make it into Dean’s room— _their_ room, now—and Dean shuts the door behind them before lifting Cas up and tossing him onto the bed, because it’s something he only gets away with when Cas is so turned on he can hardly think—ordinarily, Cas isn’t overly fond of Dean “flaunting” his alpha strength.

Dean strips down quickly and efficiently, but when he looks over at the bed, it’s clear that Cas was faster than him, already naked on his hands and knees, slick sliding down his inner thighs. But Dean has different ideas, and when he lies down on his back, Cas gets the picture, crawling over to straddle Dean’s lap.

He’s hovering over the head of Dean’s cock, just about to sink down, when Dean’s phone goes off, sound muffled—he must’ve left it in the living room.

“Fuck,” Cas mutters.

“Ignore it,” Dean says, tugging at Cas’s hips because his slick is dripping down onto Dean’s cock, mixing with the precome already coming from the tip, and Dean thinks he might die if he doesn’t get to fuck up into Cas in the next five seconds.

“What if—”

Dean groans and shoves his hips upward, pushing the head of his cock against Cas’s entrance, which gives in to him as easy as always. Cas lets out a breathy gasp, startled.

“You are _such_ a jerk,” he grinds out, voice low, before dropping like a rock onto Dean, sheathing him in one swift movement. Dean’s entire body tenses up with a choked cry that can’t possibly be coming from his lips, pleasure rippling through him in waves, and then Cas starts _moving_.

Dean has no clue where Cas learned how to ride a dick like this, how he figured out the perfect rhythm for tilting and twisting his hips, the best angles to clench down and essentially rob Dean of all higher brain functions. He hates thinking about it, hates how it’s evidence that even though Cas hasn’t ever knotted with anyone else, he still has been with other people. But Jesus, _fuck_ , Dean would be lying if he said that he hasn’t benefited from Cas’s technique.

He’s just planted his feet flat on the bed, intending to put in some effort, when Cas comes to an abrupt stop, seated in his lap, and Dean groans, eyes flicking open.

“What—”

“My phone,” Cas says.

“Fuck, ignore it,” Dean says, bucking up, hoping to entice Cas into movement.

Cas stays still. “It might be the same person who was calling you—might be important,” he says.

“Cas, I swear to god—”

But Cas is already pulling off him, and Dean can’t help the whine that falls from his lips at the loss. “I’ll be right back,” Cas is saying, but fuck him, fuck _everything_ —what could be more important than getting knotted up nice and good?

Dean lets his head fall back onto the pillows with an annoyed grunt, reaching one hand down to work his cock, nice and slow, because some stimulation is better than none.

“I’ll have you know that this was a _very_ inconvenient time,” Cas says into his phone as he reenters the room, and Dean lifts his head again to glare at him. “Yes, he’s right here. Hold on.”

“I don’t want—” Dean starts, but Cas has already shoved the phone to his ear, so he says, “Who is this?”

“What, Cas didn’t tell you?”

It’s Charlie’s voice. “What do you want?” Dean asks, irritated.

“Dude, _rude_ ,” Charlie says.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Dean says, using his free hand to keep the phone by his ear because Cas has released it. “What did you wanna tell me?”

“I proposed to Gilda.”

Cas chooses this moment to sink down onto Dean’s cock, batting Dean’s hand out of the way so that he can go down all the way, and a startled moan breaks out of Dean’s throat.

“Uh… Dean?”

Dean bites down on his lip to keep quiet as Cas starts moving, quickly returning to his pace from earlier, and Jesus fucking _Christ_ , how is he supposed to _talk_ right now?

“Yeah,” Dean pants. “That’s uh— _unnnh_ —what did she say?”

“Dean…”

There’s a brief pause during which Dean tries to keep Cas still with one hand on his hip, but he’s completely unsuccessful, and Cas just drags his hand up and sucks it into his mouth, laving between the fingers, which is totally not helpful.

“…are you having sex?”

“ _Ohhh_ , yeah,” Dean gets out, breathier than his voice has any right to be, _ever_ , but Cas is swiveling in his lap, hips moving so fluidly that he can’t possibly be human. “Oh, fuck—Cas said it was—an incon—inc—a bad time, didn’t he?”

“Aw god, _gross_.”

And now that Charlie knows, Dean doesn’t bother biting back the next moan, because she deserves it for staying on the phone this long.

“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll call you back later, okay?”

“Better to— _Jesus_ , Cas—better tomorrow,” Dean gasps.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, bye!” Charlie says, hanging up.

Dean drops the phone next to his head and looks up at Cas. As soon as their eyes meet, Cas smiles and fucking _winks_ , and that—that is fucking _it_.

Dean surges up, twisting as he does to throw Cas down onto the bed. He takes a second to line himself up again before thrusting in, bringing his arms up and bracing them on either side of Cas’s head.

“You _fucker_ ,” he hisses, shoving into Cas as hard as he can.

He switches up the angle a few times until he bumps Cas’s prostate, making his entire body tense up with pleasure. _Jackpot_. Dean keeps that angle up, varying the pace to make each jolt to Cas’s prostate as unpredictable as possible, and his cries get progressively louder.

“Wait—wait, Dean, slow down, please—Ariel’s asleep—fuck, _fuck_ —”

“You didn’t seem—all that keen—on slowing down—when I was on—the goddamn—phone,” Dean grunts between thrusts, breathless.

“F-Fuck, Dean, I can’t—”

Dean speeds up, snapping his hips into Cas as fast as he can, careful to maintain the right angle, and Cas goes nearly cross-eyed with pleasure, mouth open and head tossed back to bare the beautiful length of his neck to his alpha. Dean takes the invitation for what it is and lowers his head, pressing a number of sloppy kisses to the sweat-slick skin before fastening his mouth near the bolt of Cas’s jaw and sucking, _hard_.

“Oh god, Dean—no, Dean, we’ve still got a week of work before break—” Cas tries to protest, but there’s no way Dean’s stopping now. He’s gotta mark Cas up at least a little, gotta make sure none of those assholes at the office get any ideas about Cas.

After they got their shit sorted out, Dean had returned Cas’s resignation letter to him, and they’d gone up together for a talk with Crowley, saying that they wanted to stay at Sandover, but that they didn’t want to keep their relationship a secret. He’d replied that it would take some time to get around company policy, and it had ended up taking about two months for Dean to actually get his promotion.

As a result, he and Cas are still pretty new on the top floor, and Dean has definitely caught people eyeing Cas the past two weeks, so it’s completely reasonable for Dean to work his way down Cas’s neck, bite down in a spot that’ll be visible when Cas puts on his suit and tie, and really work his jaw, get his tooth marks printed into Cas’s skin, nice and deep and obvious.

Cas clenches around him, hands flying up to scrabble at Dean’s back, nails scratching red lines into Dean’s skin, marking him up in return.

“Fuck,” Dean grunts, shoving in deep and stilling, grinding his cock up into Cas’s prostate and dragging out the pleasure. From the way Cas is leaking around Dean, dripping down onto the sheets, it must be nearly excruciating.

“Just—just _knot me_ ,” Cas gets out in a reedy voice, and he certainly smells desperate, every molecule of his scent designed to attract Dean’s attention, to stimulate his senses and compel him to knot.

And who is Dean to resist when the best interests of his and Cas’s biology happen to align perfectly with his own want?

He pulls out and shoves back into Cas, gives a few more powerful thrusts, and enjoys the way Cas’s back arches, legs wrapping around Dean’s waist in a vain attempt to keep him inside. But Dean can only hold off his orgasm for so long—finally, he bites down hard at the base of Cas’s neck, shoves into Cas one last time, and stills, his knot swelling up just beyond Cas’s entrance as he starts to come.

It seems to last forever yet not long enough, and Dean loses himself in the rhythmic tightening and releasing around him, coaxing another load of come from him. Cas shatters near the end of the second spray, his insides gripping Dean’s knot, clenching around it like it’s the best thing ever, and holy fuck, Dean has only just regained enough presence of mind to realize that his balls are drawing up tight again, which—

And then he’s emptying himself into Cas a third time, startled and a little oversensitive but blissed out nonetheless.

“Holy shit,” Dean gasps, and his voice is surprisingly hoarse, given that Cas did most of the screaming.

“Indeed,” Cas says, shifting on Dean’s cock and sighing with pleasure.

Dean reaches a hand down unthinkingly and pets Cas’s stomach, wet with Cas’s come. He usually likes to imagine that Cas’s lower belly is distended, full to bursting with Dean and his come. Today, with an extra load inside Cas, the pressure feels insane, and Christ, it’s probably all just in Dean’s imagination, but it almost _does_ feel like Cas’s lower abdomen is bulging outward, just slightly.

As they come down, the position becomes a little uncomfortable, and Dean shifts, sliding his hands underneath Cas. “I’m gonna roll us over, okay?”

Cas doesn’t respond, so Dean just rolls, pulling Cas along so that he’s lying on top of him, and this angle is much better, doesn’t tug as much on the spot where they’re locked together. He relaxes, breathing in Cas’s scent, and feels wonderfully content.

Cas lifts his torso up slightly, tilting his chin up to look at Dean, and he’s smiling, bringing a hand up to run it through Dean’s hair.

“What?” Dean says.

“I… I have a surprise for you.”

Dean laughs. “What, right now? You couldn’t give it to me before we tied?” he says.

Cas shakes his head, still smiling. “No, I couldn’t.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Dean says, “Well? What is it?”

Cas pushes up into a sitting position, straddling Dean’s hips, and Dean can’t help the pleased groan that escapes his lips at the delightful shifting Cas’s motion causes around his knot. Then Cas twists, swiveling around to face away from Dean, whimpering a little because oh shit, Dean’s starting to get hard again inside him.

“Fuck, Cas, what do you think you’re doing?” Dean says, hands landing on Cas’s hips. He means to hold him still, but Cas is already almost finished with his half-turn, so Dean just lets him move, drinks in the sight of his bare back, only a small part of the mark on his neck visible from this angle.

“Oh, god,” Cas gasps, a hint of surprise in his voice as he lies back down, back against Dean’s front. He rests his head over Dean’s right shoulder and reaches his arms up, sliding his hands back to grasp the back of Dean’s neck.

“Cas, I thought you had something for me,” Dean says.

“Yes, well, I’m—” Cas rolls his hips, a tiny back-and-forth motion that tugs at Dean’s knot, and Christ, Dean’s well on his way to being fully erect “—a bit distracted, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Wait, Cas—” Dean starts, but his voice breaks off into a moan as Cas clenches down around him, inner muscles massaging his cock, and _fuck_ , that feels good. But no, Dean needs to get a hold of himself before they get carried away. “Cas— _Jesus_ —this knot is gonna stay in place even longer if you don’t stop.”

“Mhmm,” Cas hums, unconcerned, undulating his hips to keep working Dean’s knot.

And damn it, Dean’s almost too sensitive after three orgasms in a row, and he doesn’t think he has anything left in him for Cas to take, yet Cas just keeps squeezing around him, building up a steady rhythm.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, Cas—Cas, please—”

He doesn’t even know whether he’s pleading for Cas to stop or to keep going, but it doesn’t matter either way because in the next moment he’s coming for the fourth time tonight. Cas jerks above him, a small cry escaping his lips as the pressure inside him increases, and Dean just rubs his hands up and down Cas’s sides and tries to catch his breath.

Then Cas goes completely boneless above him, melting into him, and Dean buries his nose behind the shell of Cas’s ear, gets a whiff of satisfaction in that perfect apple-cinnamon scent. And then he pauses, because there’s something slightly salty, plus a tiny bit of bitterness, layered in Cas’s scent. Not in a bad way, but more in the dark-chocolate kind of variation. Kind of like Sarah’s scent, except suffused with apple rather than citrus.

Dean stiffens. “Cas, you—are you—”

“Surprise,” Cas says quietly, and he’s gone carefully still above Dean, tense, like he’s afraid of Dean’s reaction. It’s completely reasonable, given their history, but…

“Oh my god,” Dean whispers, scenting Cas again just to make sure he’s not mistaken. “You’re pregnant. Cas, you’re amazing.” He runs his hands over Cas’s stomach and feels the way the muscles loosen as Cas relaxes again. “You didn’t have to worry,” he says.

“Yes, I know. I… I couldn’t help it, and I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I understand,” Dean says. And then, “God, we’re having another baby, Cas.”

“I know,” Cas replies, and now that his tension is out of the air, the entire room smells lighter. _Fresher_. “I’m not used to this,” Cas says, shaking his head a little. “It feels… like a dream. Like we’re too happy for it to possibly be real.”

“I don’t know about you, but I think we deserve a little happiness after… after everything,” Dean says.

They’re silent for a while, and Dean’s content to just hold onto Cas like this, breathing in the proof that their family is going to grow by one, that Ariel’s gonna have a little brother or sister.

Then Cas’s hands land on Dean’s and hold on, his grip gentle but firm. “Thank you,” he murmurs, so soft that Dean nearly misses it.

“For what?”

“For talking some sense into me,” Cas says. “It’s all so clear to me now, but at the time, I really thought that Balthazar and I—that we had a future together. I kept waiting for you to do something, say something that would give me an excuse to give up on you, but you were so… you never gave me a reason to work with. I was so sure that leaving you would fix everything.”

“Cas, why are you—”

“I just thought I should thank you. I don’t think I ever did.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I did this for myself as much as I did it for you,” Dean says. “Hell, you know me. I’m pretty much as selfish as they come.”

“That’s not true. I wouldn’t love you so much if it were,” Cas says, and Dean’s never gonna get used to how easily Cas uses those words around him. Cas yawns then, shifting a little on top of Dean, and Dean rubs a hand up and down his belly.

“Go ahead and sleep. We can clean up in the morning.”

“What if Ariel wanders in?” Cas asks.

“Uh… here, let me just—” Dean lifts his upper body and shoves at the covers beneath him, pushing them down toward the foot of the bed.

Cas moves with him, helping him to shove the material down until it can be pulled back up, covering them both. Then he tips to the side, and Dean turns with him, rearranging their bodies so that they’re spooned together on their sides.

“Good?” Dean says.

“Mm, perfect,” Cas answers sleepily, finding Dean’s hands and twisting their fingers together.

Dean just smiles because yeah, it _is_ perfect. “Good night, Cas.”

“Sleep well, Dean,” Cas mumbles.

Dean scoots a tiny bit closer, curls up to keep as much contact with his omega as possible, and inhales, nice and slow, and the scent that fills his lungs, all other smells aside, is that of happiness. And he realizes that he _is_ happy—completely, perfectly, incandescently happy.

Smiling, Dean presses a goodnight kiss to the base of Cas’s neck, closes his eyes, and breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've started work on the prequel, but it might be some time yet before I actually start posting it because I'm shifting focus (at least for the time being) to another project. I'll hopefully have enough written to start posting the prequel by late November.
> 
> [ **ETA:** Actually it'll probably be December. I've said so in the pinkverse tag on tumblr, but I figured I should put this here so you're not confused when the fic doesn't go up on time.]
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading and leaving feedback:)


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